Reploids and Ghosts, oh my!
by Ghost Writer no. 3
Summary: Yet again, the Mavericks devise a plan to utterly destroy X and Zero. Though they try something different; put a poltergeist in a giant box. They didn't get this right, either. My first story ever. Yay. Complete, but not finished.
1. Really, really old

**Reploids and Ghosts, Oh my! **

**Chapter 1: This story is oooold**

_Past: Hi all. Any who, a friend of mine joked and said for me to write a story about her favorite video game characters, Megaman X and Zero, she would pay me 25 bucks. Now, I'm poor, so it sounded good so right now when it is 3:34 in the morning eastern time (Halloween candy good), I start on one. So, here we go._

Present: Ah, this was the first fan-fiction I ever wrote. This was back when I was fourteen or fifteen. I've wrote some other ones before my Kingdom Hearts Obsession, but this is the only one that has still survive. It is crap, but I love it still. This was written back when the formatting on fan fiction DOT net was good and more freer and oh yah, you could put links. This story is over five years old. If you've seen this story before, welcome back. Things shall change in the story. Do know that though this story is going to be re-vamped some, this is still going to be written from my fourteen year old PoV. So it will be crap. But oh well. It's my crap and I love it

_Author Notes (no, that up there wasn't part of the notes, that's personal crap you skip over!) Past: This is done out of mere boredom (and Halloween candy) so should not be taken seriously. Though some parts are serious, it's really a humor fic. That is all._

Author Notes Present: Oh yah, there was much Halloween candy. Loads of it.

Disclaimer: Megaman and all things pertaining to it belong to Capcom and/or other affiliates of that company. Ghostwriter, though the name is public domain own, the character belongs to me. The belief is ghost and other paranormal activity can be or is true.

* * *

**Prologue**

* * *

A lone girl woke up. Well, her definition of waking up. She was not really a person that slept.

Anyways, she 'woke up' and looked around. All she could see was that she was in a metal room. 'Weird', she thought, 'we can't leave our spots we posses, can we?' No, for she remembered when Brooks told her he could not go any farther than the city limits. Then how did she end up in metal? She did not close to where metal was like this. Suddenly, she heard footsteps. Or something in the rhythm of footsteps.

Metal clanged on metal. 'Weird,' she ponders, 'People don't ware metal shoes.' She peeked around a corner. She spotted several men dressed in very weird armor. She also noticed that the two people that seem to be the leaders (as all the others kept their distance) were, coincidently, the ones that looked like Boba-Fett and an ugly Mr. Clean. How it was a conscience was…just because.

"Halloween's over," she mumbled to herself.

"I don't think it worked, Master." The purple Boba-Fett said hushed-like.

"Vile, of course it worked! This plan is so different, it cannot fail! Never question me! Now, the being is around here somewhere. Just do as your told and put X and Zero in this box," Mr. Clean yells at the Boba-Fett (apparently now named Vile).

The girl felt a little sorry for poor Vile, but also confused. That was weird; she could always sense sprits, with or without a body. But none of these folks. And who the hell names their kids Vile, X, and Zero. Poor kids would have been picked on in school.

Suddenly, the men seemed to disappear in a laser beam of light. They teleported? Oh, now the world made. Those were reploids. 'That explains all this metal', she thought. She smiled and nodded, then she stopped.

"No it doesn't!" She yelled at herself. "What am I doing here? Who were those people? Who are these people named X and Zero? Why am I asking so many questions? No one is even here, for goodness sakes!" She then stopped the yelling, but looked down at the floor, "Wait, I'm talking to my self. I must be going crazy. The again, people are only truly crazy when they believe everyone else is crazy." She nodded, satisfied with her response. Then she frowned, "I'm still talking to myself!"

She just stopped.

"Okay, I'm alone at the moment. But hey! No Brooks around, time to start some writing! But first, a little exploring!" she took out a book, a pencil, and walked through a wall. That's right, a wall.

For you see, this wasn't just some ordinary girl; this was a dead girl. More specifically, a ghost.

She explored the whole place and found nothing (at least, what she considered to be nothing)!

* * *

This is crap. Too many obvious reference about people. This is a really bad, crappy story that if I read, I would just have smiled and nodded. But still, it's my crap. Laugh at how bad it is. I even knew then this was crap story when I wrote it all those years ago, so you cannot offend me. Think of it as showing progression. This was how bad I was when I started, now look how decent I am. In five more years, I'll actually be writing good stories!


	2. I just spoiled the whole chapter

**Chapter 2**

**X and Zero, Captured?! By: Ghostwriter**

I got two reviews for the first chapter once upon a time. But one was from my brother, so that doesn't count. And the other was from another person, who has deleted everything, even though their account is still active. I dropped an e-mail for thanks. But without that review (from the one which I call G. D., not my brother) I may not be here today. Whether that's a good or bad thing, well, that's something to debate.

Note: You know how you always read those bloody and gory battle seen between X, Zero, and the Mavericks? Well, this is pretty much a crappy version of it.

Declaimers: I don't own Mega Man. Also, the paranormal (such as ghost) could be or is true.

* * *

The outside was devastating. Carnage and butchery everywhere. Bodies packed stack high. Or parts, at least. Every 4 feet was a patch of blood. Thievery and murder at an all time high. Mugging was very high and riots broke loss everywhere.

But enough about L. A. Lets go about half way around the earth and look into Tokyo, Japan. Right now, it wasn't so good, either. There was another battle going on. Mavericks against the Hunters.

Yep, just another day.

KABOOOM!!!

Another blast went off again, causing some devastating results.

X blinked. Tears formed in his eyes as he cradled something in his palms. "Why god, why?! Why did little Jimmy have to die!"

"X", Zero shouted at him, but dropped his voice when he tapped X on the sholder, "Jimmy was a rag doll!!"

X blinked, then let a smile on. "Oh yah!" His faced bighted up and went off to the battle while his best friend rolled his eyes and followed.

"Maverick sighted, you should see them", Alia talked over the communicator to the two Maverick Hunter commanders. "They should be visual…now."

"Well, Duh. Even X could figure that out.", Zero said sarcastically as he sprinted on ahead. "The chard remains of his doll should have been his first clue."

"Hey!" X shouted though Zero was already ahead of him.

Both started to tear into battle. X cut through a bunch of small, brainless robots on the ground while Zero got the ones that started to fly. Soon they reached into the main conflicted.

Yep, the Commander of the 17th unit and the Commander of the 0 unit were basically kicking ass.

X started to blast through Mavericks shouting, "This is for Jimmy!"

Zero rolled his eyes again while he took out his beam saber and started slashing at any Mavericks that got into his way. 'I'll just get him another and he'll forget that 'Jimmy' died', Zero smirked at that thought. Ever since that kindergarten class belonging to Mrs. Flect made X a rag doll, Jimmy, X always brought it along with him to battle as a good luck charm…and it seems to blow up every time he does. The kindergarten class was always happy to make him another one.

Suddenly, a big mech was dropped from some place or another. It looked very, very big and very, very tough. On boarded was none other than the seemly king of mechs, Vile. Sitting on the shoulder of this great mech. was the mercenary, Dynamo.

"Remember, we only need to detain X and Zero, not go on a manslaughter", Vile reminded Dynamo.

"Yah, yah." Dynamo mumbled to him, "Says the man who is notorious for blowing up anything taller then him within site distance.

X spotted them first. "Hey, its Boba-Fett! Hi there!" X waves at Vile. It must be forgiven for X, for the area held a lot of dust and he actually thought it was Boba-Fett. That, and X in the battle had taken a many blows to the head. He was still recovering.

This did not stop Zero and Dynamo from snickering.

"Oh, you just shut up, you dumb blue-berry! I'll show you, I will." Vile shouted in rage, "This mech. is the best one ever made!" He turned the mech. on and then…

And then…

and then it wouldn't start. Vile looked shocked and confused. Vile tried to start it again, restarting the sequence. It still wouldn't work.

"Um." X stammered out looking at the mech, then at Vile, "Is it suppose to just be scary looking?"

"Oh, hold on, I need to fix it, that's all. Something probably came loose when they dropped the thing." Vile started to open his mech and fiddle with all the wires and stuff. "Yep, I think I see what the problem is. You think they could have dropped it a little softer. I know it's built to take a beating, but it's not built for long distant jumps." He mumbled as he started working.

Dynamo sighed. "This my take a bit."

---

_Thirty minutes later…_

---

"Now, if I put wire A to socket GH1, then…if I put chip ABC123DOREME in slot 14." Vile kept mumbling to himself.

The battle between the Mavericks and the Hunters in the down-town area had ended about fifteen minutes ago, but Dynamo, Mega Man X, and Zero were waiting for Vile to finish repairing the mech. X started to do back flips and saying a bunch of rhymes out of boredom when he counted past one hundred while Dynamo and Zero were debating (read: fighting) about who got more girls.

While back flipping, X said, "There once was a man who lived in Nantucket, he loved his horse so much he-"

"No, I had 5 girls on a date one time. Top that!" Zero said crossing his hands over his chest.

"Well, I have had 5 girls in bed once! And besides, you look like a girl." Dynamo said back in a very proud, mocking tone.

"Shut up!" Zero shouted at him. This was a bit of a subject that the Red Demon was a little sensitive about. But before Zero could comment back…

"I think I fixed it! I think I fixed it!" Vile shouted excitedly. All three looked at him.

"Well, turn it on", Dynamo shouted at him, now in the mood for a little action. Vile turned it on and then…

And then…

And then it still won't start. All sighed and Vile set to work again.

---

_One hour later…_

---

"Now, if I put this here, and that there, then that should react to that like this." Vile was still working hard on his mech suit, oblivious to everything else.

Mega Man X and Zero were both sparing with each other while Dynamo started to listen to some music. "You've gotta fight, for your right, to pa-ar-ar-tay!" Dynamo started to sing along, not caring if anyone was giving stares. In fact, he liked it.

"Yes! I think I got it!" Vile shouted more excitedly, jumping up and down like a happy. All looked at him again.

"Oh, this I've got to see." Zero mumbled sarcastically. X hushed him.

Vile turned it on and then…

And then…

And then it still refused to start. All fell anime style and Vile started to work even faster and even more irate (though it was hard to tell, with the bucket on his head).

---

_Another hour later…_

---

People were coming out again without fear of being blown to pieces. Even though my residence were taught big, metal thing of death equal bad, it was impossible not to be curious about a reploid working on a mech unit while three other reploids were playing Go Fish near the area.

Yep, out of boredom waiting for Vile to fix his baby and X just happening to have a pack of cards with him, they figured why the hell not.

"You got any 8's, Dynamo?" X asked.

"Go fish", Dynamo said a little bored.

"Okay, okay, this time I fixed it! I tested everything before hand" Vile said, pulling on his helmet a little.. X was the only one who stood up this time, leaving his cards facedown as he watched. Zero and Dynamo grinned at each other and peaked at X's cards.

"Okay, here we go!" X looked a little eagerly.

Vile started up the mech and then…

And then…

And then something sparked, and then it smoked a little before quitting. Vile yelled in rage and started to repair it yet again.

X started to feel a little sorry for Vile but went back to his game of cards with Dynamo and Zero, not sure if he should be interrupting the man's work.

"X, do you have any Jacks?" Zero smirked at his best friend.

"Yes…aww!" X grumbled, as he handed Zero the requested cards

---.

_Sometimes later…_

---

It was sunset by now and everyone was coming home or finally leaving their homes. A bit of a crowned looked over at the group of reploids, the tourist even started to take some pictures.

Vile worked tirelessly on his mech, while Mega Man X and Zero were taking a nap, while Dynamo started to drink some of the six-packs he always brought with him, sort of playing a drinking game with himself.

Vile finally stood up. "I finished it, I finished it!" He shouted with despair and wariness.

No one got up. It really did not bug him so much.

Vile started it up yet again and then…

And then…

And then it worked!

"Ahahaha!! It works, it works! Thank you!" Vile started to dance around. The almost trash-can banging sounds soon woke up X and Zero.

It also got Dynamo off to his 3rd beer.

Vile looked over at the slightly disbelieved Maverick Hunters and announced, "Okay, time to capture you two. Dynamo, get up."

Dynamo, already starting to fell a buzz from this pack of beverage plus his past, started to really not caring about the mission, which caused the mercenary to opt to chug down the said 3rd beer in one gulp. In celebration, he started on the 4th. Vile growled at him, but chose in favor of waking up his monster.

The two Maverick Hunters got in a fighting stance and waited for Vile to attack.

It lurched to life, charged up and took his first step.

Then the mech suit stopped. Vile got what was assumed a blink stare on his face. It was quite hard to see the expression with only the little "T" opening.

He quickly found the problem.

The battery decided to die.

X and Zero blinked, seeing the armor not work…yet again.

Vile just sat there for a few more seconds before jumping out of the machine, standing in front of it, looking it over, and collapsing in a fit of tears. "Why me?! This isn't fair! I just wanted to try out the mech suit, nothing more! I wasn't even going to kill anyone with it! I was just going to use it this once and put it away and have it as a trophy!" Vile was now blubbering like a child who's favorite toy just broke, which probably was not far from the truth.

X, being the sweet-natured good-guy he was, felt sorry for Vile and walked up to the crying, purple reploid. He put a hand on Vile's shoulder. "There, there Vile, at least you tried. Cheer up! I'm sure when you replace the energy source, it will work like a charm."

Vile looked at X with watery eyes. Assumed watery eyes. "You think so?" Vile asked hopefully.

"Sure. Tell you what, me and Zero will wait here for you, and you go get whatever parts you need." X said a little like aquarelle, but he was such a nice guy, he would try to make his enemy feel happy before being worried about the dangerous mech that could possibly blast him into the nearest building.

Vile ran off skipping, getting some people's attention. He even kissed some human girl along the way.

X sighed and wondered why the hell he just said all that to a person he really, really, really disliked like. Oh well. "Come on Zero, we better get…oh for the love of-",

Zero was now drinking with Dynamo while Dynamo finished his 5th one and pulled out anther six-pack.

It was X's turn to roll his eyes but suddenly, he was hit on the back of his neck with something shocking and glowing and preceded to fainted. Zero, already on his 2nd beer, did not noticed X's predicament until he fell for the same fate.

Dynamo looked up after seeing Zero toppled over. "Hello, little rookie." He said to the perpetrator.

"The name is Stardust! S-T-A-R-T-D-U-S-T!" A random yellow-armored female Maverick yelled at Dynamo, "And I'm doing more work then you are!" She was telling the truth, of course. After all, she had knocked out the two best hunters ever alive. Though on happened to be distracted by Vile and the other was distracted by booze.

"Do I look like I give a damn?" Dynamo said starting on his 6th beer, rather happy with himself

"You stupid mercenary!" She mumbled, before commanding, "Now, help me pick them up, we have to get them to 'The Ghost Box'. Master Sigma will be very pleased." Stardust finally had a bright smile on her face.

Just then, Vile came up with a big, metal, something or other. Vile looked around at the two unconscious hunters. "Why are they knocked out?" Vile asks with a blank expression on his face. Then again, his expression looked blank.

"Because you were suppose to have them knocked out about 2 hours ago!" Stardust yelled at him.

"But…but…but…" Vile started to twitched and then he cried some more.

Stardust looked at Vile in confusion.

Dynamo finished his 7th beer.

* * *

Could someone tell me the location of the MHHQ? I can't find it. I am not sure if it is in Europe or Japan. And if not, then is Abel city the official location by the game or was that only in the short cartoon?


	3. People are Lazy

**Chapter 3 **

**Many points of view, many people doing nothing.**  
By: Ghostwriter

There was this person named Carscard. They offered to translate this story for me. Most of their stuff was/in Spanish or genres I'm not familiar with. But it was a nice offer. I'll remember that. Oh, but this time around, my story has been featured in a community! This is the community it is on: .net/community/The_Golden_Turd/63909/ it's like, a community for terrible bad stories that are entertain to read, they are good. That is how I feel about my baby.

Disclaimers: I don't own anything to do with Capcom. The only reploid I called my own is Stardust, but you can use her if you want. I just wanted someone to throw out to be there for random flirtation and yelling and it's hard to tell if Maverick Bosses are male of female. I also drew a picture of a random reploid with freckle and yellow armor once upon a time and since her face looked evil, I figured she was a Maverick. The little ghost, however, is my character and I don't see the reason for anyone to want her. Also, paranormal is either true or not true. Understand?

* * *

Someone ran down the halls of the Maverick Hunter's Head Quarters. It was none other then Alia, the operator who not only told X and Zero where the Mavericks were, but also the one who did the paper work they never got done (which was more time then not, about 85% of the time, at least).

Like mentioned earlier, she was running down the halls of MHHQ in a hurry. She was on her way to see Signas, the supervisor of the whole Maverick Hunter groups.

About 5 hours after an earlier Maverick battle, X's and Zero's signal vanished. She was not really worried about them for not returning to base at first. This was a common occurrence; Zero would usually go off somewhere (usually to get drunk) and X stayed by his friend's side just to make sure Zero did not get into a fight (Zero was a fan of bar brawls). But the signals just went up and vanished. And without them reporting in for the standard time when a scene became secure, Alia felt concerned. She decided to report to Signas first, then Dr. Cain.

She entered Signas' office. "Sir, I have something to-what the hell?" Alia started out calm, but she exclaimed out as she saw Signas sleeping on his desk, a big puddle of drool on some of his paper work. Now any other time Alia would have made fun of Signas for that, and probably would later, but now was not the time for taunting. "Signas, wake up!" She shouted at him.

"Mhhmm…give me four minutes, Kitty-poo." Signas said and rolled over, starting another little drool puddle on the other side of his paper work.

Alia did not want to know nor did she care to know who 'Kitty-poo' was, but she had to tell Signas the situation. "SIGNAS! WAKE UP!!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Signas sprang up, a piece of paper connected to his mouth. "Whoozawhathuhwhatthedamn!" He shouted wide-awake now. He blinked and looked at Alia, "What the hell was that for? I was just closing my eyes for a few seconds, no need to shout." He did not comment on his need to remove dead tree from his face.

Alia could have said a lot of things to him, but decided to screw it and tell Signas what happen. "Listen, Commander X and Commander Zero are gone. None of our sensors can pick them up! What should we do?" Alia demanded.

Signas blinks. "You woke me-I mean disturbed me for that?" Signas said looking at Alia with a little bit of anger, "I don't see what the problem is."

"What do you mean?!" She was becoming a little angrily herself, "Our two best hunters are missing!"

Signas shrugged, "Why should we worry? You just said they are our best hunters."

Alia looked at him in positive shock. "What do you mean?! The both could be dead!!"

"Well," Signas stated matter-of-factly, "Zero already died several times, so no worry there, and X hasn't really died before. And it's not like there is proof that they are dead. It's a chance, but I highly doubt it."

Alia's face was now a mixture of shock, anger, confusion, and dumbfound. "But, but, but…" she stammered out.

"Like I said Alia," Signas started, "Don't worry and relax. Now leave. I need to catch up on my…paperwork." And Signas grabbed the drool-covered paper and started to read it over.

"Oh, forget it!" Alia threw her arms up in the arm and walked out of the room.

Signas waited for her to leave, and then laid his head down on his desk, starting another nap.

Alia decided that she should bring this Dr. Cain. As well as the crap that was Signas. Alia knocked on his door. "Dr. Cain?! I have some news for you." The door didn't answer. Alia blinked and pondered her next course of action.

Now, if Dr. Cain was taking a nap, she would not mind coming back; Dr. Cain being an old man may need those naps to function well. But Dr. Cain was known for his all-nighter and she heard some sort of base sound coming from the office. He had to be awake.

Alia knocked a little louder. Still, no answer. She then pounded. Nothing. She shrugged and decided to open the door. In case he was asleep, she could easily slip back up. She was quiet when she wanted to be. However, she saw movement and the response came out automatically, "Dr. Cain, I'm sorry to bother you sir, but I must report-oh my god." Alia stopped as soon as she saw the most terrible thing imaginable.

Dr. Cain was dancing with a lampshade on his head with a bottle in his hand and 'getting giggly with it'. Yep, Dr. Cain was very drunk and had decided dancing was the greatest thing to do.

Alia stood with her mouth gaping, just staring.

Everyone and their cat knew that Dr. Cain was a heavy drinker, but no one cared since he was not an angry drinker and still did all his work with precision. But this was too much for Alia. She walked out of the room, shut the door, and started to walk down the hall again.

'Okay', Alia started to think, 'Now, who else could you tell that might listen. I've got it! Lifesaver, he'd know what to do!' Alia started to run down to the medical bay, hoping that Lifesaver was not 'busy' as the other two leaders were.

She entered the medical bay and asked the secretary, "Where is Lifesaver?" she demanded, running out of patience.

"Um, he is in the operation room, but he is in the middle of a-" before the nurse droid could finish, Alia started to the operation room. She went through the door and opened them without much for care.

"Lifesaver, I need you help!" Alia shouted.

Lifesaver turned around…and made a wrong insertion in the person he was operating on.

"OH MY GOD!!!" One of the other doctors shouted as the patient's vitals started to go haywire.

"****!" Lifesaver shouted out a bad word and started to try to fix the mistake he just made. Alia stared just for a moment before quickly getting her little tussie out of there and headed back to her quarters to…wait for other people to get done.

----

Back to where everyone else is…

---

"They've awaked, Master," a female voice said.

"Good," said another voice, this one heavy.

"What should we do?" The first voice asked.

"Oh, let are killer 'guest' deal with them," Said the second voice in a sinister way, "Now, how do we detected our guest?"

"I'm sorry to say Master, but we don't have that in our computers yet, but it will soon be operational." The female voice said.

"Quite alright," 'Master' said, "I'm still proud of the work you did, my dear. Very impressive for a first mission. Better then my other minions."

"Thank you, Master," voice one said with a smile on her face.

Suddenly, two other bots opened the dark room and stormed in, in a fight.

"No! Don't even think about it Dynamo! You even lay a hand on my baby…I swear I'll…do something!"

"You know what Vile? I don't care about your armor and you're threats suck."

Then the walked through the other side.

Stardust and Sigma both blinked and rolled their eyes.

Sigma clung to his head. "Yep, a lot better then my typical…minions. I wonder if I'm being punished."

---

Somewhere else…

---

Somebody groaned. The one eye opened. Then another.

"Oh, my freakin' head." X stated very groggily. He sat up. "Jees, what hit me?" He rubbed his head, looking around. X blinked. 'Where am I?' He thought.

The area he was in looked like a normal base, except there wasn't anything around. Just big, blue-gray metal walls with a few doorways here and there. In the corner of the room laid Zero.

X blinked and ran over to his best friend's side. "Zero?! You alright, buddy?" X said with concern in his voice. He hoped that Zero was not damaged. When X turned Zero over, he found something that surprised and irritated him. The Crimson Hunter, Commander of unit 0, and a full A Rank, the most feared hunter around, was snoring and sleeping like a baby with a goofy smile on his face.

X was dumbfounded for a bit, then started to get angry for wasting his concern on the drunk sleeping on the cold floor. "WAKE UP YOU JERK," X shouted at Zero.

Zero was wide-awake now. "What the hell?!" Zero shouted, "God, I'm so wasted." He then noticed the X was glaring deadly at him. "What did I do now?" Zero remarked.

"Nothing," X said with clenched teeth, "Just get up, fool, and lets figure out were we are."

Zero got up, a little wobbly. He had to lean against X for support, but never the less got up. Zero studied his surrounding. "Where the hell are we?" Zero said. "Must be a base or prison, or something."

"My thoughts, too." X looked around some more.

"Well, standing here debating on where we are isn't getting us anywhere." He clapped his hands, "I say we split up and go exploring." Zero stated.

"But Zero, we don't know where we are or why we're here! There could be Mavericks here, I mean, someone must have knocked us both out, and I distinctly remember us going to fight Vile and Dynamo. For all we know, they set bombs around!" X shouted in a panic.

"It looks fine. I mean, I seem to be having trouble with sending out any communications from this location. But," Zero paused for a moment to check something, "Our short-wave communicators are still working so if one of us gets in trouble, we can tell the other one. Okay?" Zero finished with a smirk on his face.

"But…" Zero already started down a corridor before X could finish. X was now pretty mad, so he thought screw Zero and started down another corridor.

---

And in this corner…

---

The Ghost Girl looked around. "Damn, what do you think we should do, Jack?" She said to her little Jack Skellington rag-doll.

The doll, of course, did not answer, but it was nice to have around. She had found her doll in some weird room that had a bunch of big computers and things in it and was quite glad to have it here with her instead of where she was suppose to be.

"Well, we better look around; there is suppose to be a killer around here somewhere, and they're not nice. Then again, Brooks isn't that bad. He's pretty funny when he's mad, but cool when he's not." The little thing said to herself more then to her doll, still walking down another hall, then another, then another…

Then she gazed down a particular hall, passed it, but came back for a double-take

Their hair looked like a hippy, though their hair was very shiny. Well, his hair seemed to be in a ponytail. She would call him a he for the moment because he was rather taller. She also noticed that he had weird armor on. Most of it was red, white, and black. The helmet made it look like he had horns.

"Whoops", her voice echoed the hall.

The man stiffened. "Uh oh." she remarked a little less loud.

Very quickly he pulled out a little rod that ignited into a sword made out of light and turned around.

* * *

Gods, don't you love cliffhangers?


	4. It's just a jump to the left!

**Chapter 4: ****Time-warp**

**By Ghostwriter no 3**

Oh gosh, I got the fourth chapter checked. Lucky you people are!

Disclaimers: I don't have anything to do with the Mega Man serious except writing this and owning some of the games. While there have been studies on the paranormal, it can be or is true.

---

Zero was spooked. No, not scared like being frightened of something. He was not to that point yet. Just spooked. He really never had been spooked before, so it was the perfect word for this situation.

He never heard voices in a room (no, the voices he sometimes heard in his head that told him to kill everyone, that was different.). If it had been an adult's voice, it would have been different, but this was a child's voice. He had never heard a child's voice in an empty hallway. It was spooky, really. And Zero swore he had felt something that was…spooky.

---

Five minutes ago…

---

Zero walked down some halls, and more halls and more halls, and more halls and more halls. He was lost. Not that he knew where he was to begin with. "Damn, where the hell am I?" He sighed, "Maybe X was right, maybe this is some Maverick trap. Wish I didn't leave him alone." He mumbled to himself. The truth was he was worried-sick about X. Even thought X was now a commander of his own unit now, Zero still remembered the rookie he trained long ago. But because he did not want to look like a nag, he kept his com closed.

And Zero was unnerved. No, not totally freaked out, but there was a hint of fear, fear of the unknown.

Suddenly, it got colder. It sent a chill up Zero's spine. This raised his doubts up a little. It also raised the hairs on his neck, but that was pretty much from the cold.

"A draft", he mumbled to himself. He went around a corner and started to slow down.

About 30 seconds later he heard someone, it sounded like a young girl, say, "Whoops," He stopped. He had to be imagining it. But the air was getting colder. Too cold for a draft. He thought he saw his breath in the air. "Uh oh," the voice said again.

Even though he never attacked a child on his own free will nor would he want to, even though he shouldn't be afraid of anything as small as a child, even though he didn't even know if their was any child behind him, the slight tingle of fear had become a little bigger and he could feel it slightly. He ignited his Z-saber and turned around.

Nothing.

No a single soul.

Zero blinked. He shook his head. "I swore I felt something." Zero mumbled to himself. He looked around the room.

No evidence of anyone around, but that chill was still in the air.

Wait.

What was that on the ground? He picked it up. It looked like a plushie, but it wasn't short and fat enough to be one. It was a skeleton doll, yet it was made of fabric. Zero thought it was a rag doll, like Jimmy, but it just looked like that because it was thin. It had a little pinstripe outfit on, with a little bat bow tie, and no eyes. He didn't notice it before, and he knew it wasn't there before. He shrugged and dropped it, not one to be suspicious of a cartoon inanimate object. He was thinking the cold was getting to him. There was no reploid making it, so maybe it was just the room.

What he didn't see was after he went down the next hall; a ghost-girl picked up the doll and went back the other way.

---

Present…

----

Zero rolled his eyes. First things first, find a way through here, then find X, and get out of here. But he still could not shake that chill earlier.

---

About 5 seconds after 5 minutes ago…

---

The dead child quickly grabbed her Jack Skellington doll and 'ran' the other way from the tall, armored man. As soon as she thought that Red-Blondie couldn't hear her, she asked with a coo, "Aw, did Mr. Hippy-man hurt you? Well, you seem to be in good condition. I'm sorry I dropped you. I was just in panic. Forgive?" She stared at the doll for a couple of moments, and then smiled, "I knew you would!" She hugs the doll and continued down some more halls.

She would of taken short-cuts in-between walls, but she was afraid if she left her doll alone for a bit, it would go away…or possibly taken..

But she did not mind. It was a chance to see this place more. She traveled in many different places. Sometimes it came to dead ends, but hey, she was not in a hurry.

She was dead anyways. She was not rushing to anywhere.

It would have been nice if everything did not look like the same. But after a bit, she turned around another corner and peaked in. It seemed to be a control room of some kind. She blinked and looked curiously at this new area.

There was the ugly Mr. Clean and some guy with a big grin on his face. Oh, he had blue hair! It was kind of funny so she laughed a little. Grinny looked up.

"I hear something", Grinny stated and got up (Mr. Clean glared at him, but stormed away in anger). He walked over to the door way and out of it to go investigate (and unknown to the girl, to get away from the big guy for a few moments). Grinny grumbled suddenly. "Freakin' Sigma, why does it have to be so cold in here? I thought this place was designed to be air proof." The child had just enough time to duck inside a wall, but again, dropped her Jack doll. He heard that, "Why the hell is this doll doing here? Does the rookie own this? Wouldn't be surprised." Mr. Clean or it seems his name was Sigma, didn't seem to be caring. But then he looked at the doll, then at the wall. He set it lightly against it, then let it go. It fell to the floor again. He picked it up and glanced it over. "Hmmm…" He mumbled, but then glanced on the corner and took a big swig before heading back into the room, doll in hand.

With Sigma gone, the blue-haired fellow went back to watching the monitors.

The little girl quickly ducked out of the wall and glared. Her poor doll. She would have to wait for a moment when he would drop him. But he kept it near him. But it happened in the past. She could wait.

With the man distracted, she slipped by him and decided to explore this new area a little more.

---

Sometime later…

---

She had already seen several reploids as of now, over and over again, including Red, the Mr. Clean, Boba-Fett, Grinny, and Miss Star. She did not stay for long with any of them nor indicate her presences. Except when she came across the blue one on the screen. He did not look dangerous, or violent as the other ones. He looked actually lost.

She also noticed the Sigma fellow was paying pretty close attention to any of the cameras pointing to him, more so then Red, who wondered around just as much as the blue guy.

'Well, I can figure some things out from this situation. Mr. Clean and co. are in charge of this place, probably making them bad guys. Blue guy and Red-Hippy-Blondie…guessing opposing, maybe good,' she kept these facts on the top of her brain, 'And if Mr. Grinny harms my doll, I swear he'll be waking up in a cold sweat for a while.' That was the top thought. She did not typically haunt people, but she figured if he wrecked her favorite doll, she could make the exception for him.

She looked back at the monitor and saw the only female bad-guys coming up after the blue guy.

'Well, that's not fair', she thought and decided to go after and warn the poor guy. She liked the blue one.

Dynamo, in the silence of it all and with Sigma walking away yet again, finally relaxed and mumbled, "Well, this whole thing…it's stupid anyways," Dynamo tossed the doll into the air as a distraction until he realized he was playing with a doll, so he tossed it away behind somewhere. When boredom set in a few moments later, he turned to see how good of a throw he was.

He then saw what looked like a young girl, but she was white and see-through. She seemed to be looking at the monitors. This was strange for is daily occurrence, yet almost tamed compared to the visions he usually saw after consuming various illicit items. Suddenly the girl walked over to where he threw the doll, Dynamo watching the whole time. The girl blinked. She then turned around and looked Dynamo square in the eye.

"What are you looking at, Grinny? Don't ever touch Jack again. You do, I'll do bad things to you." She then went around the corner, carrying her doll and went on whatever way she was going to.

"Dynamo", Sigma started, "Stardust is closing in on X, and I told her not to. Go stop her."

Dynamo still kept staring. He looked at his beverage, then down the hall, then back at his beverage, then the hall, then beverage, the hall, beverage, hall, beverage, hall, beverage, hall.

"Well Dynamo? I didn't hire you to get drunk, I hired you to do work. Now go stop Stardust." Sigma stopped his foot down for effect

Dynamo only just stated this: "This is some great beer. Where did Vile get this stuff again?" He looked at Sigma and stated, "Just to be on the safe side…you see that over there?"

Sigma, for the sake of figuring out what was this man's problem, looked over in the section that previous Dynamo focused on. When both man stared, of course, nothing was there. Neither men were too surprised; Dynamo thought his random episode ended and Sigma thought Dynamo was wasting time. The Mercenary looked at the monitor and said, "Alright, I'll get onto it. Watch out for white children with dolls." He warned and strutted down the way.

Sigma was dumbfounded. "I wonder why I just don't put a bullet in my head."

---

Ten minutes ago…

---

Stardust felt useless.

All she was doing was watching the monitors. Even though she was still a rookie, she did a great job of getting the two best hunters. She deserved some freedom.

Sigma was also busy watching the monitors. Which usually if Master Sigma was doing, then her doing it was just as awesome. There was nothing going on except Zero and X getting hopelessly lost. And there seemed to be a doll floating around. She figured it was a glitch or maybe it was the other element. But she doubted that killer ghost carry around dolls, so she ignored it. But still, she would never let a dead-person out-due her.

And then she had an idea.

She got up, walked down the hall, and went towards the homing beckon she put on X (she had one on Zero, too. But X was closer).

---

Present...

---

Stardust moved slowly, trying not to let her feet make any sounds. It was hard not to, since the ground was made out of metal and so were her boots.

Then, she spotted him. Well, his back anyways, but all the more better. She smirked and raised her cannon, stepping carefully around the corner, ready for attacking. She then stumbled and made quite a commotion.

X stopped.

"Crap," Stardust hissed and she dove.

X would have turned around and confronted the back-attack, but he was rammed into the wall but the shot directed in the middle of his back. Already unprepared for the ambushed, it stunned him, giving Stardust ample time to prepare for another attack. She jumped at X. Unfortunately, Stardust thought about her next move for too long; X saw her descending and he rolled away just in time. She slammed into the wall and, safe to say, that hurt. And when she got hurt, she became very pissed. X stood up, but this time Stardust was quicker in her attack. She practically dashed at him and before he could stand up to his full height, kicked him in the stomach. Hard. Three more times. Then when he dropped onto the ground and turned to roll away from her, she hit him in the crotch. Even harder. Four more times. Lucky for X he was wearing his armor so it didn't hurt that much. But with the sudden assault yet again on his person's she was able to pulled him up by his helmet and punched him. Hard. Lots of times. Stardust threw him back down and was ready to shoot him when he jumped up and pinned her.

The girl hit hard, but this was a robot who had been hit with punches with the power of a bullet train. He could handle over a dozen in the area. He was just waiting for the moment for her to drop her guard. And when she raised that weapon, he used his (slightly) larger body frame to keep her from doing it again.

Stardust cursed and started to struggle.

X did not tell her to stop, but he went straight to business, "Alright, I don't usually hit girls, but if you don't cooperate, Maverick, I won't have a choice", X said with a little anger in his voice. It did not help his emotions and his usual morals that his nose was currently running red with blood, "Now, where we and what are are Zero and I doing here?"

"Bite me", Stardust said with a little growl as she started to kick her legs around.

She was testing X, she really was. "I won't bite you; I want to know what's going on", X said as calming as he could. And it was getting harder since she decided to dig her knee into his side.

Stardust got an idea. X not only mentioned that he usually never hit girls and he was not bated by her vulgar comment, and in fact stated he was not going to bite her. So, he may have a more…chivalry idealism. "Really? You're really going to hit a girl?" She turned on the most powerful weapon known to men: Female Charm. "I didn't know you were mean like that, Mega Man X. Everyone says you're a nice guy." For an added effect, she smiled sadly and batted her eyelashes.

And it was not such a long-shot; she was not that bad looking. She had a round face, giving her a cute appeal. Pretty, round, hazel eyes with a little bit of short, blond hair poking out of her helmet completed the rest of her head. The helmet was shaped like; you guessed it, a start. Well, it was like a normal helmet, but had a star shape surrounding her face. And her armor were different shades of yellow. None of it was revealing armor, but it did give some idea that she had a figure of a girl.

This did not help poor X much. Like mentioned early, X was a nice guy at heart. And was very, very, very nervous when it came to the opposite-gender sometimes. He was now really paying attention to what position he was in (pinning a female-Maverick) and the female Maverick was in (being pinned by X). He wasn't prepared for this, and was taken aback. "Well, um, eeh, umm, I umm."

And that was the opening the Maverick waited for.

Before X could finish his stammering (or catch that on of her arms wiggled out from under him), he got an uppercut. While his eyeballs rolled behind his head for a moment, the knee from early made its appearance and flipped X off of her. Stardust barrel rolled away from him, crouched and aimed a cannon right at him.

She was going to shoot him, she really was. But she heard a voice behind her saying, "Hey, come on. Don't hurt the poor dude." Stardust did not like people interrupting her when she was 'working', so she turned around to give them a piece of her mind.

She saw a girl. A normal human girl. Except she was white and see-through.

Now, Stardust knew that there was a homicidal ghost running around here. And she was not afraid of many things. There was one fear that she head. Spectrophobia. That is the fear of spirits and specters.

Now, it may have seemed strange for someone with the fear of ghost to be running around in an area where a ghost could be around, but Stardust was not known for her foresight. She was more of a moment person.

So as soon as she saw a little girl ghost with a skeleton doll in her hands, Stardust freaked. She got a blank look on her face and then ran like the devil was chasing her.

---

A different point of view…

---

The ghost girl was kind of shocked and these events. This lady was beating up a guy and a little ghost scared her off. Weeeeerid…

---

One minutes earlier…

---

The child thought she was getting close. No, not because she had some sort of super dead sense. She heard someone getting his or her butt kicked.

It took her a moment to navigate around the corner and saw the girl-antagonistic-guy

upper-cutting the blue-protagonist-guy.

She decided to intervene and said, "Hey, come on. Don't hurt the poor dude." She was not a big confrontational person, and as rather childish it sounded…well, she was in all regards a child.

The lady did turn around just started at her for about 10 seconds.

The bad lady then screamed, "Oh my god! It's gonna eat me! AHHHHH!" And then she ran very fast. That would cause anyone to blink and stare at the fleeing person for about another 10 seconds.

---

Somewhere, in a dark room.

---

A bald Maverick was watching a great fighter run away because of nothing that appeared on the screen, and two reploids getting drunk and reading dirty magazines.

All Sigma said was this: "Why do I even bother anymore?"

---

Present...

---

The ghost girl blinked. "Well, that was…different," she said to herself. She then heard a groan and looked over to the guy against the wall.

He was beat up.

Mega Man X (she heard the lady call him that), looked like he needed some sort of medical attention. The child could not figure out why that lady ran away, but she didn't worry about that now. The guy looked like he needed help.

"Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um." She kept stammering. She had to think.

Suddenly, hear the familiar sound of metal stepping on metal. She fluttered around the room, peaking out various ways. She found the person making the sound: It was that blond hippy.

A light bulb appeared over her head and turned on.

She then started screaming, "HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME! Umm…X IS IN TROUBLE! PLEASE, HELP MEEEEE," If she had vocal cords, they would be in pain. But being dead does have some advantages.

---

When I wrote this, I thought it was a crappy chapter. But…I kinda like it now.


	5. People think too much

**Chapter 5**

**Hello, my name is Cathtrina. What is your's? **

**By: Ghostwriter**

I should say something, but…I don't know. Oh, sorry for any problems with the characters. I haven't played it in years. And sorry about centering on Stardust for a bit. I don't like throwing in original characters without explanations. In fact, I don't like them usual. Her existence is merely to act tough, but to show her rather girly side and, well, we need more female Mavericks. They have female Masters now a days! We need some more "role-models." Oh, and it shall be realized that the Media are made up of a bunch of jerks and just cover the silliest and the bluntest things. Not only that, but they interview the fools.

Disclaimer: Megaman X, Zero, Sigma, Vile, Dynamo, Alia, Signas, Dr. Cain, Douglas, Lifesavor, the Mavericks, the Maverick Hunters, and Reploids belong to Capcom and any affiliates that contributed to making any of the Megaman series and *gasps for breath* not me. Oh, and there is no proof that there is or is not such things as ghost.

---

Zero headed down some more halls. And some more halls. And some more halls. He figured he probably went around in circles (or more correctly, squares) already, but he could not tell one hall from another. So he went down some more halls. And some more halls. And some more halls. He was getting mad and worried. Mad that he, the great Zero, could not find his way out of place this place. Worried for his best friend, X, could not find his way out of this place. Zero figured he would have ran into him by now.

"You know, the Mavericks could just come and fight me. But no, they have to put me in a maze. They could at least try to destroy me. But nooo, they make me pissed off. They could just do their normal thing. BUT NO! I HAVE TO WALK AROUND THIS PLACE LIKE A JACK-ASS."

Zero was in a very bad mood. Zero started to quietly mumble to himself. But, since we all know how Zero is, he started to talk louder. "Stupid...Can't even...I wish I was...Why me god, why me?" His mumbling started to sound like him talking to himself. This eventually got him talking to his other side: His "evil" side. **"Kill them all**...go away...**kill them aaaall**...I need to get out...**KILL THEM ALL**...up shut, up shut now," This went back and forth for a while, but even his evil side got bored of bugging him and went back to sleep.

Neither of their boredom lasted long because he heard a girl's scream. It sounded like she said something was going to eat her. Zero stopped and blinked. "Well, I must have gone crazier because I am hearing new voices in my head," he said in quite a calm tone, considering the subject matter. A curious bot as he was, he started to head to the direction of the scream.

"The worst it can be is the Mavericks trying to scare me. As if that is going to scare me," he mumbled to himself.

He kept a casual gate, until he heard the next bouts of shouts, "HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME! Umm…X IS IN TROUBLE! PLEASE, HELP MEEEEE!" That got Zero's rear-end moving.

While spiriting, Zero did actually think. This could be another Maverick trick, which could mean his death. He did not care, though. If his best friend was in danger, hurt, or both, he had to help. So he started running down the hall to the direction of the voice, which was hard do to the fact that he did not know which path would show him the right way. Never the less, he ran to the voice in order to help is friend.

Some how by the acts of the Gods or who ever was up there, he got closer because the little girl's yelling was getting louder.

Right when he was about to turn around another corridor, the yelling stopped. But Zero guessed what awaited around the corner could be quite deadly. He drew his Z-saber out and ignited it. Then, very quickly, he turned around the corner.

No one was in the area. No one except a beat-up X.

He only spared a glance around for enemies before he turned off his sword and ran to X, calling his fellow hunter's name, not noticing the chill in the air he had felt earlier…

---

A couple of minute earlier...

---

X slightly stirred. His face hurt, very, very, very much. And he felt cold. And he heard yelling. Groaning in pain, he opened his eyes just a tinsy-winsy-tiny bit. He figured he was hallucinating because he saw a teen girl, all in white and somehow opaque, looking down at him. She seemed to be the one yelling, though he really couldn't understand what she was yelling about, being that his "brain" felt like it was pounding "inside" his head.

'Wow', he thought to himself, 'That Maverick must have hit me harder then I thought,' He started to laugh which turned into another groan. Happiness hurt at the moment.

After the last sound of pain, girl stopped yelling, turned down to look at him, slightly smiling, and said in a soft, wispy, but sweet sounding voice, "Hey, you okay? Don't worry, blue dude, I think help is on the way." Then the teen giggled.

X smiled back, though it was how a drunk would smile, and nodded. "Kay," he responded lightly, still dizzy from his attack. But since the silly girl was happy, maybe he could be.

The girl blinked. "Okay…um, the blond hippy is coming," she said not in as sweet or soft voice, but more of a normal teen's voice (besides the wispy part). The girl seemed to ponder on something for a bit before she grabbed something from the ground. It looked like a skeleton doll. "Here yah go", the wispy-voice teen said as she sat the doll in X's lap, "Jack is gonna keep you company for a bit. Jack, be nice." For a split second, she looked up and smiled at X one more time...then vanished into thin air.

This was a little too much for X to deal with, so he fainted, again. He thought he heard Zero yelling for him, but felt too tired. He dropped his head down.

---

Same as above, just different point of view...

---

The ghost child kept yelling, "HELP!!" Suddenly, the guy known as X made a groaning sound. She blinked and turned at him. 'Poor dude,' she thought, 'I wonder how he will react to a ghost. Better be as nice as you can be.' Putting on one of her best smiles and trying to talk in a motherly she said, "Hey, you okay? Don't worry, blue dude, I think help is on the way." 'God, that was corny,' she thought and giggled.

Surprisingly, he answered back, saying, "Kay," and gave her a dizzy smile.

'Yep, very poor...Uh oh, the blond hippy is coming', she thought to herself as she felt Zero's present coming down the hall and saying the last part out loud. 'Well, I hate to leave the guy alone...' she pondered on this thought for a few then looked at her stuffed skeleton doll. 'Well...it's not like I can take you through walls, Mr. Skellington. I guess you betta watch out for X here.' Picking up her doll, she started saying, "Here yah go." She gently set her doll in his lap, then added, "Jack is gonna keep you company for a bit. Jack, be nice." She smiled at X. 'Well, Blondie turned on that flashlight-sword. Betta split.' She made herself dissipate, and then hid in a wall, watching and listening.

---

Back to Zero…

---

Zero started to tap X on the shoulder. "X?" he questioned his friend just to make sure that he was alive, "X? Oh come on, wake up!" Zero may have sounded angry, but he was really worried.

Cold spells out of nowhere, voices coming from nowhere, little dolls going around were they want.

'Wait', Zero thought, 'Why did I suddenly think of dolls?' He looked around and sure enough, there was the same little skull doll he had seen earlier. Somehow, it had gotten onto X. 'Okay, now this is freaky', Zero thought to him. He picked up the doll and threw it to the side, then went back to tend to his friend. "Come-on buddy, wake-up!" After doing this for a good minute, X showed sighs of waking up.

"Mhhmm...I don't wanna get up..." X mumbled and tried to turn away.

Zero laughed. That sounded better. "Well, you have to, blue bomber," Zero stated. And just for fun. "By the way, that is 'I don't wanna get up, SIR, rookie."

X blinked and looked at Zero with half-opened eyes. "I haven't been your subordinate in years." Then X's eyes rolled a little, "Why does my head feel so cold?" X asked.

Zero just shook his head and grinned. "Well, at least you're alright," Zero said, still smiling. His face turned serious at inspected the wounds. Shallow, but they looked to be on the throbbing side, "What the hell happened to you?"

Blinking and blushing, X stammered out, "Um...I got into a fight with a Maverick..."

Zero raised an eyebrow. "A Maverick? Then why don't I see any blaster marks?"

"Um...she just beat me up"

This time, Zero blinked and soon cackled, "You got your ass kicked by a girl? Oh, this is too great." Zero kept snickering.

X kept getting redder and angrier. "It wasn't my fault! She distracted me!"

"Mmhmm, how did she do that to you?" Zero grinned at X which just made X blush more.

"Well...you know...how I get around girls and stuff...and when they try to...flirt on me...you know...that," he just kept stammering out and finally turned the same color as Zero's armor. X felt like crawling under a rock and just staying there.

Zero kept chuckling. "Aw, how cute. Xie-wexie getting a little blush. Bet you let you guard down for a moment, too, hence why we are on the floor. Now, what did I teach you at basic again?"

X was not thinking about anything Zero taught him at basic. He thought a big punch right on his best friend's nose was a good idea, but he restrained and instead glared daggers at him, "Are you quite done?!"

"Yah, yah, yah," Zero waved his hand around and stood up, then offered a hand to his comrade, "Wouldn't want you to turn into a tomato, would I?" This caused another set of snickering.

This also made X angrier (even though he took the hand grabbed to him), so he said the meanest thing he could think of, "Well, I might have gotten beat up by a girl, but at least I don't look like one." He knew he had made a very big mistake, but right now he was in pain and figured Zero would not pick a physically fight.

Zero went dead silent. X counted in his head until ten. As soon as X counted reached double digits, Zero looked pissed and started yelling. "Why does that mean?! I am a not a girl! Nor do I even look like one! I am a very manly man! And just because I like my hair and try to keep it nice, soft, and silky, does not make me at all a girl. And if anyone looks like a girl, it is you. I still don't see why people think I am a girl. Sure, I like to keep myself up, but..." It kind of went back and forth between Zero talking about how masculine he was and about his hair.

X waited for him to finish because he really did not need his butt kicked again and it was better for Zero to let out some steam every now and then, especially about this issue. Better X then some rookie hunter who did not know any better or was trying to be funny.

It appeared, however, Zero was not down. While Zero continued to ramble, X looked around, ignoring his best friend's glares and screams (Not that Zero appeared to mind so much, since he just kept at it even though it was clear to see X was somewhere else). 'Wow,' X thought to himself, 'This is one weird building. I wonder why they are doing this? I mean, they usually just try to kill us all. This seems much planed out. And why did that girl maverick running off like that? I thought she said something about something eating her, but that can't be right. There is not a whole lot of things that would actually eat a reploid.'

Zero finally noticed his audience was not paying attention. He glared at his friend, frowned, then leaned to the side of X and opened his mouth.

While Zero did those actions, X went to with his train of thoughts, "And where did that weird child go? I mean, she couldn't of ran through the wall. And another thing: Didn't she give me a doll? It was all probably a dream but I wonder-' His thoughts were cut short by Zero yelling in his ear.

"X, are you even paying attention to me? God, are you brain dead or something?!" Zero seemed to stop his hissy-fit about being called a girl, but now was in a hissy-fit about his friend ignoring him. He would have call X inconsiderate, but that sounded like such a woman's word. Maybe call X a donkey would work.

"Huh? Oh, nothing," X stated, then smiled innocently, "Just wondering if I have a concussion." He hit his helmet for emphasis.

"Mmhmm," Zero actually decided to not call X any bad names. He was rather child-like (besides, if he did have some physical problem, Zero would have guilt. He decided to ask about something he noticed earlier, "Anyways...hey...was there a kid here?" Zero asked.

X blinked, some how not sure if he would like where this was going. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I thought I heard a girl yelling about you being hurt. I just figured it was a Maverick trap."

"Really?" X asked this time, "I coulda sworn..." He looked around the area.

"Could of sworn what?" Zero asked with slightly concern.

X looked up at Zero and began, "Well, I had the weirdest dream. I thought I saw a very white girl. You know, like flour white. Not pale or anything, but really this powdery-white barely teen talking to me and saying I'm going to be alright. Now that I am remembering it…it was quite cold." X shivered slightly thinking about it, not noticing that Zero also shivered. "Anyways, she vanished into the wall, like a ghost or something. Oh yah, before that she left me with a little doll-"

"Hold it!" Zero cut his friend off again, "A doll? Like a skeleton doll?"

X nodded and looked at him curiously. "Yep, exactly. I think its name was John or Joe or Jake or Jack or Jay or something like that. Something with a J. And it kind of reminded me of Jim...wait, how did you know it was a skeleton doll, Z?"

"This is all too freaky..." Zero murmured to himself, rubbing his helmet.

This caused X to blinks again. "What is?" X asked in a whisper, slightly afraid.

Instead of answering, Zero looked around, and then walked over to somewhere over to the side. He picked up something, walked back, and held out something in his hand.

"Zero wha-" X started to question what his friend was doing, but once Zero brought the item for X to stare at, X's jaw dropped, "No Way!" Sure enough, it was the same doll that the girl left behind.

"I saw this same doll on the ground a while back. I figured a Maverick left it behind...but now I am not so sure," Zero told X, "I would guess that the female Maverick did this, but…seems strange."

"No way," X said again, "The Maverick I fought did not have anywhere she could stow a doll, yet…the other option isn't possible. The weird girl that gave me the doll...she vanished into the wall." X finished and stared blankly at the wall she disappeared into.

"X, do you notice something?" Zero looked around.

"What is there to notice?" X whispered.

"...There is a chill in the air."

---

Back to the Hunter's Base...

----

Alia had called an emergency meeting. Actually, Dr. Cain called in an emergency meeting; she just black-mailed Dr. Cain into calling it after she had found him a little more sober and threatened to remark about his escapes.

"Now," Dr. Cain started to say, wobbling on his cane, blood-shot eyes staring at everyone and everything in the room, "Even though the last battle with the Mavericks ended about twelve hours ago, it seems that neither Commander Zero nor Commander Megaman X have reported in. Now, we all know that Zero tends to "relax" (Douglas snorts at the term relax) and that X usually keeps him company, but even I must say that neither of them have been out this late."

"Yah, even Zero can't drink THAT much," Douglas said quietly, earning him a backhand from Alia. Due to the corn nature of the joke, nobody laughed. Actually, a few people glared.

Dr. Cain cleared his throat, "Anyways, I know it is late and some of you are still probably tired (at this time Signas snapped himself up from drifting in and out of sleep. But since no one caught him, he pulled his hat down and went to sleep), but we must deal with this issue. Now, I would like to get Alia up here to explain the situation more theory..."

Alia walked up to the podium, started to stare at everyone, and began, "Good-evening. I know...WAKE UP SIGNAS!!" She cleared her throat, "As I was starting out, I know that most of you are wondering why we need to worry about the Commanders. Well, for starters, they're signals are missing." This caused some of the group to murmur, "Another thing is that according to eye-witness accounts have spotted three reploids: Dynamo, Vile, and Stardust." Dynamo's hand shot up, "Now, according to sor...yes Douglas?"

"Um," Douglas started, looking around the room nervously, "I know about the other two, but who is that last one you just mentioned?"

"Stardust is a Maverick. She's important to note as she appears to be rising in status among the ranks Mavericks, as she has been partnered with Vile on several occasions." Signas raised his hands, "Anyways, oh, what is it Signas?"

"How come you know that?" Signas asked suspiciously.

Alia sighed. Shocked, but not surprised, "...You are the one who sent out spies, remember?"

"Oh...Oh yah," Signas contemplated, "I remember now. Just wondering."

Alia gave Signas the evil eye and cleared her throat. "Like I was saying, these three Mavericks were spotted taking both the Commanders away. Here is some news footage." Alia walks up to the computer counsel, presses a few buttons, and a news report turns on.

A guy who looks around twenty or thirty popped up, brown hair and in a suit holing a microphone. He started to talk. "This is Robert Duello here reporting for channel 7 news. I am here in town just after an attack. Afterwards, it seems that a few stayed behind. This included three Mavericks and the famed hunter Zero and X. For some time afterwards, they stayed behind until it seems that both commanders were over powered and taken somewhere. You heard this on channel 7 first, folks. Not much is known on their condition or their whereabouts at the moment, but some eye-witnesses has told us how they came to have disappeared."

It changes frames and a new person pops up, some young twenty year old male with medium length black hair back in a pony tail and wearing a tang-top. "Um...yah, there was this big metal thing and they were all kind of hanging around it. It was pretty cool looking. I was, you know, just having lunch with my girl, "Points to a young girl, probably around sixteen, in the background who waves, "And you know, they were like yelling and talking and stuff. Um...that's it."

Next frames showed a family of five, wearing straw hats, shorts. The little boy wearing a 'I'm with stupid' shirt, the little girl and a T-shirt two sizes to big, the older girl wore a over-coat and a frown, the mother wearing a tang-top, and the dad wearing an awful tropical shirt. The dad speaks: "Wow, this was sure amazing. This is me and the sprouts first time on a vacation, and my little Bekka here," He reaches a meat hand around the eldest's girl's shoulder, "Will be heading to college next year. We are all so proud of her!" The older girl rolled her eyes at the comment, but made to comment. The dad continued to prattle on, "Any who, it was so exciting to see that big metal thing," The camera focuses on the kids for a moment. They have been making faces at the camera. The mom, getting done with just standing next to her husband, started taking pictures, "And those people in armor doing things an such, really a slide-show saver. Oh, and a girl one came out and whacked the two over the head. Reminded me of my wife, didn't I say it reminded me of you, Clair?"

The wife looked up from her picture taking. "Sure, Carl, you said it reminded you of our first date when you tired to "make the moves" on me."

The dad chuckled. "A yes, I remember that night. It was a warm, September…" All three children start making yucky disgusted noise, night, I think it rained later-"

This Frame shows two college students, one with bleached-blond hair, while the other with long, braided black hair. The blond talked first, twirling a lock around her finger, "Yah, it was like, amazing. They were just kind of chatting and stuff, like, I mean the three ones while the one who, like, looked like, um, a scanning machine was working. Then when he got finished, he liked ran pass us skipping, but, like, before that, he totally kissed Myrato." The dizty girl pointed at the shy girl next to her.

The blond starts giggling while the one with braids blushes. "Shut up, Amy..." The kissed girl warned.

"Like, don't have a cow. Anyways, like, then a girl came out and she knocked out, like, X and Zero, which I am, like, a fan of. Anyways, they just kind of left. It was cool though seeing a girl beat on a guy. GIRL POWER!" She raised a hand over her hand and does a V sign."

Finally the frame goes back to the news reporter. "There you go folks, first here on channel 7 news. We will keep reporting as new sources develop and maybe solve this mystery. Robert Juvello, channel 7 news, and back to you in the studio!"

Frame goes back to a news station with a man and woman at the desk. The woman smiled out and said with the pretty teeth, "Thanks Bob, now onto weath-"

The computer screen was turned off. Alia turns and faces everyone. "Now, any question?" Several hands rose up, "And I am not answering any questions in which involve on how Vile could kiss anyone. Not the time right now, people." All hands fell down except Douglas's, "Yes, Douglas?"

"Um.…" Douglas stammers out, "What was the point of that?" Everyone else blinked, then threw paper at him.

---

Back at "the metal box".........

---

After X recovers from the shock of being beaten around, both reploid commanders start to walk around some more. Even though they do not know where the heck they were going, they still kept going on and on. And on and on. And on and on. And on and on.

"God! Why the hell does this crap happen to us?! All the other units never have this problem! 'What happened to us?' Dragono, Commander of the eleven unit would say, 'Ah, just an ambushed, but my hunters took care of it'. But not us, never us. We always go and take care of the main problem or get put into situations like this!" If you have not figured out, Zero was yelling while X pretended to listen/ignored his friend.

"Yah Zero, sure." Zero ranted some more. X then stopped, looking around. "Um...Z?" X tried to talk to his friend…

But Zero was on a roll, "You also know what suck? Bad hair days. Now that is worst then Mavericks."

"Zero?"

"The world would be a much better place if there were no such things as bad hair days."

"ZERO!" X yelled and back-handed the back of the red bot's helmet.

Zero blinks and turned to his friend, peeved a little. "What was that for?" Zero asked a little angry.

"I heard something, and I think it is around the corner..." X pointed down the hallways to the end of it. Zero remained silent until he ignited his sword. X followed suit by raising his buster, charging it. They rounded the corner, weapons drawn. When they walled around the corner they found nothing.

Zero laughs, "Dang it, X, you got me all worried over nothing? Sometimes you can be very paranoid."

"I wasn't lying", X retorted back, "I did hear something, I swear!"

"Sure buddy, sure." Zero chuckled some more while X grumbled.

Suddenly, a blast came at both of them. Lucky, since they were both well trained, the easily dodged the blast and looked up.

Standing a ways down in the hallways was Vile and Stardust; both cannons aimed, charged, and ready to shoot their next shot.

---

About 10 minutes ago...

---

Stardust sighed. She felt bad. She had just been yelled at by Sigma for disobeying orders. 'Well, you deserve it,' She though to herself, 'You should always follow your superiors' order.' But she really knew that Sigma was madder at Vile and Dynamo for slacking off. Stardust smirks. 'At least they got there's.' She thought sinisterly and giggles just as sinisterly.

Still giggling, she looked at the monitors and started working again. They almost got the filters in the videos, but it still needed time. She sighed again. She really wanted battle experience, not video experience.

She looked at the monitors and smirked. The two hunters they trapped in here were now very close. Stardust looked around, back and forth. "Probable cause to attack." Stardust said with a little smirk on her face. She would need assistance…

Stardust turned on her communicator and the monitor where Vile and Dynamo were. Vile was awake, looking at dirty magazines while Dynamo had drunken so much beer, he actually passed out. She laughed loudly over the intercom, "Vile, wake up Dynamo and get your arses in gear."

Vile looked up at the cam-corder and said very plainly, "You want to wake up Dynamo; you can get your own "arse" down here and wake his _ass_ up. Dynamo is a crazy when he has a hangover so forget you."

Stardust slightly steamed, but kept herself together. "Fine, then you get up here and help me kick some ass. We have a blue and red boy in the area, and I won't be polite for a lady to go unintended."

If anyone could see under Vile's helmet, you would see him smirking, "Alright, lady."

---

Present…

---

"There they are, Vile." Stardust whispered to her fellow Maverick. X and Zero were approaching, Zero yelling about something.

Vile nodded and whispered back, "On the count of three, we shoot. One..." While this happened, Vile's hand slipped around the rear armor of Stardust.

Now, there was no way she could have felt it because he did not at all press his hands down and the armor is thick. But, remember guys, girls have something to know when someone is touching a part of their body: The Female Psyche (note the capitals).

So Stardust merely turned her buster against Vile's helmet and said very calmly, though saying each syllable as if they were their own word, "Vi-le-if-you-do-not-move-your-hand-off-my-butt-in-the-next-two-sec-onds-I- will-shove-my-foot-so-far-up-your-arse-two..."

It must be noted that Vile's attempt to cop a feel was not really and attempt. He was trying to not only balance himself but in case they needed to suddenly dodge, he could push the female out of his way or use her as a body shield if that was not an option. Not to mention it was quite a tight quarters. But, he also did not want a foot shoved anywhere near his own posterior (he somehow did not doubt she could do it, even in a crawlspace. He saw the yoga videos. People can do this stuff), so as quick as anything, Vile moved his hand and aimed his cannon down the vent, though if you looked, and you could see him shaking. This caused a slight sound to be made, a small tapping sound that one of the two below heard. Stardust heard X saying something was around the corner and quickly grabbed Vile's neck, turned his helmed head so he was facing her, and put a finger to her lips, shushing him up and keeping him still.

Vile complied and stayed still, save only turning his head so he could look down at the vent. They waited for the two to pass...Stardust said 'three' after the two hunters did not pass them.

Both the Mavericks jumped down and shot, hoping to surprise their enemies. Both dodged it. But the two Mavericks already charged their weapons in hopes to get another shot in before they got into good standings.

The hunters looked up at the Mavericks. "Well, darn..." X said.

Zero growled lightly, "Finally get brave enough not to use a mech.? Though it seems you still like to use the cheap tactics, huh?"

Vile laughed, "Don't blame me for that, Hunters. My lady friend here," He nodded to Stardust, "Is the one who knocked you out."

Stardust smirked and stated proudly, "I also kicked the blue ones arse a bit of go." She laughed as she made a mocking wave and wink to the Blue Bomber. X blushed at this comment while Zero could not hold back a snicker or two.

The Zero got serious (read: sarcastic) and stood up, glaring at the female with an awful sneer on his face, "Well, how's 'bout you fight me, instead of hitting on every moving body you see? Maybe if you didn't use such a dirty tactic, maybe people wouldn't think you as 'dirty', if you know what I mean," He gave a little wink. Rockman X was still too embarrassed to speak and only waited for someone to make an attacking move. Vile easily kept his laughter in check (and under his helmet), but kept the sounds of his laughter in check less he end up on the woman's hit list later. Stardust was getting very pissed, the fact that her pride and her character was being offended. Zero smiling wildly, loving the reaction he was seeing from the female Maverick, "Not to mention you look like a Christmas tree ornament. A star? More like star fruit." And with that, Zero was done with his remarks and chuckled.

By now, Stardust was as red as Zero's armor and Vile took a step back, part out of fear of getting in the middle of this fest and part out of hoping this would be a good show. In a matter or seconds, Stardust started yelling, "I AM NOT A SLUT, YOU DAMN DONEKY! I WOULD KICK ANY PERSON'S ARSE IF THEY PUT THE MOVES ON ME! AND MY NAME IS STARDUST! THAT IS WHY MY HELMET LOOKS LIKE A STAR! IF YOU GOT A PROBLEM UNDERSTAND THAT, THEN OBVIOUS ALL THAT HAIR IS SPRINING OUT OF YOUR EARS INSTEAD OF YOUR HEAD." With that, Stardust was panting and her eyes seemed to be very bright.

"Um..." X stammered out. Zero gripped his sword and growled even louder. Zero hated being yelled at, and no little two-bit Maverick would do that to him.

Finally, Vile got the guts to say something and said, "So, do you two want to fight or what?" Each was about ready to spring when suddenly a whimpering sound was heard. It came from the person anyone least suspected: Stardust, who only moments before was ranting and raving like a lunatic. Now her eyes were opened wide instead of narrow and her mouth was pulled tight instead of open like the abyss. Vile blinked, "What's wrong with you, lady? We have a job." All that came out of her mouth was tongue, which appeared to be not function. She then pointed behind the two hunters.

X and Zero turned around...only to see a little girl watching curiously. Well, not a little girl, she was a teen, probably around fourteen.

Though that was not the weird part.

The weird part was that they could see right through her. The teen blinked.

"Dahhhhhhhh!" Stardust just ran like a scared-little girl, shouting killer ghost and such. The remaining guys just stared for a bit.

Then Vile laughed, "That is the ghost we put in here? Jeez, that ain't nothing more then a kid." Chuckling, Vile walked passed the two petrified hunters and walked up to her.

---

What Zero is thinking...

---

'That is not right, that is not right, that is not right, that is not right, that is not right, that is not right...

---

What X is thinking...

---

'Ohmygodthatis arealghost areallive ghost thought ghost aren'treallyalivebecause ghost are deadpeople anthereisa deadgirl standingrightinfrontof us hey I thinkthatis theonewhoI sawafter thefight and she gaveme thedoll that doll reminds me of JimmyI wonder how Jimmy isdoingohyahthatisright he wasdestroyedbut thatJackdoll iscuteohyahthatwasgiventomeby that ghost ohyahthatis aghost right there I wonderhowitfeelstobedeadmaybe I shouldasksometimesoon...

---

What Vile is thinking…

---

'You have to be kidding me. No ****ing way Bindie over there is what the Master wanted. I don't care what that is, but I'm not taking the fall it. Eh, I'll just put it all on Stardust. Boulders roll down hill, witch.

---

What the ghost is thinking…

---

'I wonder if they can see me…'

---

What Stardust is thinking…

----

'DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHH'

---

What Dynamo is thinking…

---

'....' (Due to the massive amount of booze, his systems have shut off for five minutes.)

---

What Sigma is thinking…

---

'I just love my double-mocha latté made with soy milk, with extra foam'

---

What Alia is thinking…

---

If we don't find them...I'll get stuck with their paper work. Oh dear god, the forums I'll have to fill out if I have to report them MIA!'

----

Back to an actual plot…

---

Vile walked up to the young ghost. He bent a little to get a good look at her, and then said in a mocking voice, "Now, you don't look all that scary. How are you a killer, huh?"

The ghost girl just looked up at him, at first surprised, and then smiled. Then she opened her mouth, stuck her hand in it (all the way in), pulled out what looked like to be a skull, though see-through, and the skull started to scream and jump around in palm.

At this point, Vile screamed like a little girl and ran, probably peeing his armor. It also might have something to do with the skull actually diving at him, then sinking into his helmet as well. He did scratch at his covered face while running away.

The teen laughed.

Both X and Zero were standing there, still very shocked, now slightly disturbed.

The child looked over at them and smiled, though this time it was bright and cheerful. She actually skipped to them. The hunters followed her little movements, but were not quite ready to run like Vile. She did not look…scary. But her being a ghost probably was not the thing that shocked them. But what shocked them was…

X blinked, "Zero...that's the girl I saw...I swear..." Zero slightly nodded and slowly walked up, being the daring one. He looked down at the ghost.

The ghost just smiled up at him and said in her wispy voice, "Hello, my name is-"

Zero blinked and waved his still ignited Beam Sword through her. Nothing happened. Well, the sword was slightly distorted look, like a pencil in a cup of water, but not like with a hologram, where the figure would totally phase out in that section and become choppy.

The teen blinked and stopped her introduction, not really understanding what was happening. He did it again...and again, and again, then suddenly smirked. "Hey X, this is cool. It's not even doing anything to her. It's all shifty and stuff." The ghost looked curiously at the weapon inside

"Are you sure that is a good idea, Z?" X asked his friend. Zero shrugged. The girl cleared her throat, well, made the sound of clearing her throat.

---

So…yah, enjoy! Nothing much to say.


	6. Animal and Vegetable, I need a Mineral

**Chapter 6: Introductions and Monsters**

**By: Ghostwriter no. 3**

So once upon a time, there was a page of nonsense here. Not it is gone. And there was a mention of a sketch, but that is also gone. Oh well.

Author Notes: Though this was original the second to last planned chapter, due to the length of the finished chapter, there will be at least two more chapters after this, perhaps even more, matting on how I wanna space the chapters. I apologize for the morbidness of the start of the chapter and anything else that is sad for the ghostie. I also apologize how long it took to complete this chapter. I know I promised to get this done first to you few fans that read this. Technically, I did get the story done; I just have not checked any of it. I've been working on a few other things here and there, but this will be completed, probably sometime after the year.

Disclaimer: I don't own Mega Man. I do not know how or if a ghost 'bonds' with an item, but in the matter when it comes to specters, ghost, or spirits, these beings could exist, not saying for a fact that they do or not.

* * *

"...editors said that with some more checking, it could be made into a book. I was so happy; I celebrate by dancing in the rain without any...ain't any of yah business. After I got re-dressed...celebrating, I approached the guy who gave me the job to tell him the good news. Though there was something my friend forgot to mention: He hit the bottle a little too hard. And during the moments of inebriation, he has a very, very, very short fuse. When he found out that it was not perfect, he started to throw a tantrum. I tried to calm him down, but he only yelled at me more. Eventually I started to yell back at him, pissed because he was not appreciating my efforts. He got mad and pushed me. Guess he did not take in the account that I was a teenager while he was a grown man. I tripped on something and I fell on the corner of something, and then I blacked-out or something. He probably thought I died or something. I bet he panicked and did not know what to do next. But, you know, I don't remember that part because I was blacked out. It was a disposal factory. Um...at least, I think that is what it is. I never had been to one, so…I'm guessing here. I didn't feel any pain when he dumped me, so maybe I suffered some unfixable brain damage or something. I do remember waking up being surrounded by a bunch of bubbles and weird color liquid. I kinda swam around in it and found a wall. I pressed against it...only to fall through it. I didn't feel so well. Well, not like sick, but just strange feeling. Kind of hard to describe. I felt too light, but not like a light headedness, just…light. It is hard to describe. I guess kind of like dreaming or something. So at the time, I was not really freaked out when I just walked through several inches of metal. I mean, I found it odd, but nothing exciting. I then saw the guy on a platform near it and decided to give him a peace of my mind. I walked up to him and started yelling. He did not seem to notice me. I thought he was ignoring me so I kept yelling louder and louder at him. He still wasn't acknowledging me. So I decided to swing him around to face me...only to find my hand go right through his arm. I was starting to freak out. I couldn't believe it. Though not so much because I went through him, just generally because I did not get a hit in. And I wanted to hit him. So I tried again, this time my hand went through his back like I or he was nothing. I kept doing this over and over and over and over again. I decided to slam into him with all my force. What happened was that I went through him and the bar he was leaning on. I don't know if it was a sub-consciously or something like that, but I ended up floating over the big vat thing and looked down, my body literally levitating. Well, not my actual body. But, like, something like it. My being or soul, I guess. I could see some bubbles coming up from it and I knew it was me. I didn't know how or why, I just did. The only thought that was going through my head was, 'What a waste.' I stayed like this for a bit until I noticed that he was leaving. I wanted to follow him so I-WILL YOU STOP THAT?!" Cathtrina stopped her story because she was getting pissed off with Zero sticking his ignited saber through her.

"But its cool...its science." By the tone of his voice the party knew that Zero was not doing it out of science. The ghost girl, clearly pissed, waved her hand through the arm wielding the saber. Though it did not hurt Zero, her touch wad incredibly cold and soon Zero's arm felt like a block of ice. Zero shivered and state, "That's not cool."

She just huffed and pouted. She then said with a bit of anger, "Can I continue my story now?"

"I...wouldn't," Zero said a bit embarrassed while un-igniting his Z-saber.

She blinked. "Why?"

"Eh", all Zero did after that was point to X. The poor Hunter had his knees brought up to his chest, was shivering, sobbing lightly, and was pretty much as pale as the ghost herself.

"Jeez..." The girl said nervously, not happy that she caused the nicer robot discomfort, "I'll just...stop."

"Me thinks that would be a good idea." Zero said and knelt down next to his best friend, "X, she's done for now, you can calm down."

X looked up at Zero with still scared eyes and said in his meek and childish voice, "R-r-really?" Zero would have remarked on the childish way the voice sounded and the way X acted, but decided to give X a break and nodded. "Good!" X said still in the same tone, "That story was scary." But X still kept in his sitting position.

The teen picked up her Jack doll and held it out in front of X, smiling and saying, "Here yah go, blue dude." X looked at it and quickly took it, cuddling the doll to his chest. Zero was getting a kick out of X's behavior, but still kept his mouth closed.

"So, Kid," Zero said while turning to face the teen, "How did you end up here?"

"Well, I am not sure. I think I was kidnapped." She scratched her head.

"You think?" Zero asked. X had gotten over his fears and was now watching the ghost curiously.

"Yah...some things I can't remember. I know my dad wasn't Spanish because he really didn't speak Spanish, except he quoted Spanish movie quotes all the time. I don't think he looked Spanish, either. I just can't remember certain things." She paused and looked at both the Hunters who now had very confused looks on their faces. She decided to explain it all a little better. "Well, I'm not sure why, but certain things I can't remember. I think it has to do with the fact that since I'm dead, the memory part of my brain is six feet under...well, designated. Any who...eh, you still don't understand, do you? Jeez..." Cathtrina pondered this for a moment, then snapped her finger, exclaiming, "I know a sure way for yah tah undah stand. Take a computer. Now, say, um…like, wiping your basic memory until it is like new. It still has the important files but if you had saved files and added software on it, it is now gone. I mean, I can remember my birthday, but for stuff on my birthday, just a blank. I tried to stay behind and observe my parents...but...it was hard. For me, and I think for them. I mean, I think they could feel me, and since they were already hurting over my death, it didn't help them thinking I was around." At this time the child seemed to be close to sobbing. It was not that she was crying, but just taking deep breaths to get over her sadness. Besides, she could not cry, she needed tear ducts for that. She wanted to cry, but no tears would ever come from her again.

Both the Hunters remind silent, not at all knowing what to say.

She continued, but a bit more slowly, "I...I wanted to tell them that I was here...I was alright. But...I wasn't, was I? I was de...ces...transparent!" She finished this with a very deep sob. The girl took some very deep breaths, almost sounding like she could not breathe right. It took about a minute for her to finally speak some more. "One time...I...showed myself...mom saw me...she freaked. I swear she was going to faint...she was...white as...as...me. After that, after that, I knew that I couldn't stay. It was too hard on me...too hard on them. So...I sorta..."attached" myself to that doll." She pointed to the doll that X was now cuddling to. "I remember that movie! I loved that movie!" Her face started out as a smile and laughter, but it ended as a sob with her mouth just opened, hard to tell if it was a smile or not. "I also got my book...and I just left. I felt lost. I eventually stumbled onto a house. It was already occupied...but...I was...lost, and I needed help. So, I met Brooks. He kinda was pissed when I first came in, but he let me stay. I think I reminded him of his sister...I think she is in her thirties now. He has this thing about girls looking like Barbie, but he's alright. I think it has something to do with his unfinished business. I don't know about that." Even though she was not sobbing anymore, she still seemed very depressed.

X looked like he was about to cry (again), while Zero just kept his head down. "Comfort her." X whispered over at Zero all of a sudden.

Zero raised his head up and blinked. He then stared at X and asked, "What?"

X sighed and said, "I said com-"

"I know what you said!" Zero said in a loud whisper, "But why do I have to do it?! You're the more nurturing one!"

"I know, but she likes you better." X said slightly nervously.

"..." Zero and X had a short pause, then Zero slightly said louder then a whisper, "Where did you get that load of crap?"

"Just do it, Zero." X hissed out.

Zero grumbled, but then started walking towards the little one. Now, Zero is an insensitive jerk. These were not the type of situations that Zero had to or could deal with. So he did the only thing that he thought of. He ignited his Z-saber again and put it through her yet again.

She blinked and looked up at Zero with a neutral face. But it soon changed to a face of anger. "I told you to stop! It ain't science and it ain't funny!" She kept ranting on, but Zero just smirked.

X cleared his throat, causing both the girl ghost and red hunter to turn to him. "Well," X started, "I think it is about time we started to figure out where we were, huh?" The other two nodded and followed X.

---

_Back at the base..._

---

Gate was having a quiet time as well as exercising his mind. He was currently making a card house. Why he did this was anyone's guess, but when Gate started something, he must complete it. But that was not the point. The point was that he was making a card house. It had taken him a while just to get it balanced. It also had taken him an "n" number of times to get it built up. But now he only had the two cards left to put on the house. Then it would be complete. Gate was very much excited, even if he did not express it.

Now there is a certain law that would ruin this for Gate. It is called Murphy's Law. This law was invented by, of course, Murphy. The law states when something bad can happen, it will. So when Gate placed the last card on the card house and said in a whisper, "Eureka!" A nameless rookie quickly opened the door and shout, "Miss Alia, we found 'em!"

Now, the wind made from the door + the sound waves giving off from the rookie's shouts = the downfall of the magnificent card house.

Gate was utterly shocked at this and the room was dead silent for a bit. Gate eyes then turned a blood-red color and the blood red color was directed at the rookie.

"You..." Was all that Gate could say.

"Uhhh....I'm guessing that Miss Alia isn't here, Mr. Dr. Sir."

At the mention of Alia's name, Gate calmed down a bit. He said with much force behind it and his teeth grinding, "No, she is not here, so leave. Please."

The rookie quickly got it's ass out of there. Gate looked at the pile of cards on the ground. "Well, fifty-six pick-up wasn't one of my favorites..."

The rookie kept running around to all the places where it had know Alia to hang out at. It took a quick glance into a lounge while running by and started to screech to a stop for Alia was in the named lounge, reading a magazine and drinking some coffee.

The rookie approached Alia and quickly yelled, "We found 'em!"

"Mmm, who?" Alia said without a care as she turned the page in her magazine.

"Um...Commander X and Commander Zero, ma'am."

"Mmhmm. That's nice." She lightly waved her hand at the rookie.

The rookie was shocked at this. "But Ma'am, I thought you wanted to know when we found them."

"I'll take care of it in a second." She waved at the rookie again and answered back in a more annoyed tone.

The rookie was stunned, but quickly ran out of there to tell some more people about what happened.

Exactly thirty seconds later while she took a sip of coffee, Alia suddenly jumped up, spat out the coffee in her mouth, and threw her magazine on the ground. She then got her butt into the hallway and hoped to catch the little rookie.

---

_Back at the metal box, just not the heroes..._

---

Stardust jumped up and smiled. "Yay!" She said like a little girl. Why was she so happy? She got the cameras up. The ones that could see the 'killer ghost'. She had all reason to be happy. She had to tell someone right away. The only one around was Vile, but he was asleep. You could tell because a little drool pool was coming out of the bucket Vile called a helmet. Like that was going to stop Stardust! She started shaking Vile's shoulder like she was a nanny and the shoulder was going to get shaken-baby- syndrome.

Vile quickly jump up, shouting, "Whazawhaahaddafanadamnadda! I'll kill 'em!"

"Sit your arse down, yah moron." She said while pushing him back down in his chair, "I just wish to tell you that you are going to tell our Master that I have finished the project." She stated with glee as she pressed more buttons.

Vile just sat there for a bit, and then asked, "Um...which project."

"Vile, I hate you." She may have said bitter words, but a bright smile still adored her face, "The camera project! So we can see the ghost!" Stardust sighed after this, but it was through clenched teeth.

"Oh, okay. But...we saw the ghost. It was just some little g-"

"I WAS A GOD SCARY MONSTER OF A GHOST, VILE!" Now her smile left.

"Um...yes. So I should tell Master that?"

Stardust sighs and nodded. "I'll be being there shortly; I must turn back on the systems and such. Have fun." Stardust quickly got back on the computer and started typing like there was no tomorrow.

Vile sat there for a few second. Stardust blinked and glared at him. "Why aren't you going yet?" She asked with menace.

"Um...you told me to sit my arse down..."

"GET UP AND TELL OUR MASTER, NOW!!"

Vile, who did not what to cross any more of Stardust's wires (metaphorically as well as literally), decided to go tell Sigma.

Vile had the unfortunate accident of bumping into Dynamo.

Dynamo greeted him with one of his king-of-grins. "Hello, my bucket-wearing friend. And how are you and your lady doing today?" Dynamo said with a humorous tone.

"First off, I am not nearly as disrespectful to presume or pressure my subordinate in such a manner. And it ain't a bucket, bastard. Besides, I have better things to do then talk with scum like you. I must tell our master-"

Dynamo chuckled a little, "Your master, I'm just doing this for the booze and the money."

"Our master," Vile started saying again before Dynamo had cut him off, "That we are finishes with our cameras."

"Yah, you go do that. I'm going to talk slash flirt with the only female that is around. Tootles!" And with that, Dynamo briskly walk away from Vile and headed down the direction that Vile had come from.

Vile sighed and wonder what the hell Sigma was thinking when he decided that hiring a mercenary would be a good idea. Especially one like Dynamo. Though Vile smirked under his helmet knowing full well that Dynamo would not get out of a conversation without at least a sprang from Stardust this time.

So Vile approached his master's office. By office meaning a storage closet with some old boxes full of Gods know what, a beat-up desk with the wood half-eaten by mice, one office chair that did not spin, one recliner that makes the person fly off if they lift it to the forward position, one bean-bag chair, a broken lamp, a Mr. Coffee and Mr. Espresso machine, and a rock with the name 'Mr. Sigman' painted on.

When Vile came in the office shouting, "Master, the camera is done!" This was the response:

"Dah! My coffee! My tie!"

---

_Back to our heroes..._

---

"Yay! I found it!" The ghost girl said with much enthusiasm.

"What." X asked with as much excitement as the young ghost girl.

"I found my note book!" The girl cheered while shoving it into both hunters' faces. "It is very important to me."

"Mmhmm." Zero said, showing his was bored and started looking around again.

X smiled and said, "Ohhh, what's in it?!"

She seemed to ponder this, then smiled and said, "Stuff."

X blinked. "Stuff?" X said while scratching his helmet. She nodded. "Ummm...like?" X asked.

"My thoughts and stuff like that." The child replied.

"Like a diary?" X asked.

"Something like that. But more." She waved the book, as if to emphasize the more.

"More?" X inquired.

"Yah, it also has stuff around it, stuff going on around it, I mean."

"Like?"

"You know," She held up her fingers as she started listing of a…list, "The area I'm in, what I'm doing, what I feel like doing."

"Oh. Ummmm...can I re-"

"HEY!" Zero shouted, stopping his best friend in mid-sentence, "No time for that, we have to figure out how to get out of here and more importantly, who's behind this."

"But Z...we know. Remember that Stardust and Vile ambushed us? We know who is behind all of this." X answered very innocently.

"...Shut up X." Zero said, slightly looking at his friend annoyed, "What I meant is we need to find them and take them out."

"But, we don't know where they are."

"I know that, X. But..." Zero looks over at the ghost. "Hey, you, have you seen anything weird?"

"That's not my name. And I think this whole thing is weird." She said with a bit of a pout.

"I mean, anything that you would think would not belong here?" Asked Zero.

"Nope. Then again, I'm not sure what should be here. I'm not from here." She replied, still retaining the pout.

Zero sighed in frustration, "I mean anything that is different from the rest of this big maze?"

"Yep."

Both Zero and X blinks in astonishment. "What!" A unity called came from both guys.

"…Why are you screaming?" She asked confused.

Zero's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth ready to scream. However, X covered the big hole in his head and asked more politely, "Er, what did you find?"

"Oh, a few things. There's this room with a lot of wires in it. And all these lights that make funny noises and there was this dang drunk. I swear he was trying to take Jack from me. And there was this one room with a very creepy pic-"

"That must be their base location!" X shouted, interrupting the teen ghost.

Zero nodded. He began talking, but realized the difficulty that would be with X's palm pressed against his mouth. He dislodged it from his orifices and gave Zero a dirty look before, "So, where is it? And let us be quick about it." Zero said while tapping his foot.

"Follow me!" The Ghost Girl was very enthusiastic when she said that.

So the trio started to go, the Ghost Girl floating in front while the two Maverick Hunters chasing her. They turn and screeched around corners, dashing quickly through doorways, spiriting through empty rooms, and running down hallways. Our two heroes followed the teen blindly without question, Even though they were running for a good five minutes strait, neither of the three showed any sense of tiring. After hallways and corners, they continued. Corner, corner, hallway, corner, hallway, doorway, empty room, doorway, empty room, doorway, corner, corner, hallway, doorway, empty room, corner, wall.

_Shhhhhfts_…**CRASH!!**

For a brief moment, nothing moved. Then X slide down the wall and made a nice squeaking sound while doing it. At the same time, Zero fell off the wall like a piece of card-board and landed with a hollow metallic sound. Both had dizzy eyes and left an X and Zero shaped dent in the metal wall. A few second later with a 'stfhhhhhs' sound, a familiar girl passed back from the other side of the wall. She looked at both of them on the ground.

"Jeez...forgot about that, solid things. My bad. Guess we are taken the long way."

All she got back was some groaning.

---

_Back to a conference room, well, not back to one..._

---

"...Figure that they must be here and this could be in a Maverick Prison, for all we know-So...oh, hello Alia." This is what Alia heard when she entered the little conference from while coming to a screeching stop and slightly went passed the door. She came back and held the door-frame while panting. Alia then cleared her throat, striated out her dress-armor-thing, and walked in as dignified as she could.

To be honest, there were not many people she cared to impress in the room. It consisted of Signas, the nameless rookie from before, the 2nds of the 17th and 0 units, and a few other random soldiers from both of the two units that Alia knew to some degree.

Signas, the person who was talking when Alia entered, smirked and said, "Well, we were wondering when you were getting here. This soldier," He indicated the rookie from earlier, "Told us you maybe a bit late."

"Yes, well, I was very busy." Alia answered very proudly.

"But Miss Alia," The rookie started, "you were reading a mag-"

"I was busy." Alia said with menace.

"But-" The rookie stopped and dropped the subject, for Alia was giving it the evil eye. Everyone in the room slightly snickered, but made no comment.

"Anyways, I was _busy _and I would like to be informed on what I missed." She said in her very professional tone.

"Well, why don't you recap, solider?" Signas addressed the rookie.

It nodded and it stood up proud with a salute and cleared its throat.

"Well, as you know Miss Alia, Commander Mega Man X of the seventeenth unit and Commander Zero of the 0 unit vanished around fifteen hundred hours. They have now been gone for a number of hours and have not been found. From the witnesses earlier, we have gathered that a group of Mavericks were responsible for our missing commanders. So we tried to track them, but there was no luck. So, we tried to find them by listing off possible location. Since there are many scattered nest, we listed any location that held suspicious activity and came down with twenty. We then listed off all those that posed a problem for getting close. Our list was down to five. At first, we could not figure out which of these locations would be a holding ground. But then we got these pictures." The rookie opened a manila folder and pulled out a few pictures, "From what we gather, this has to be the location...and I think that is where you came in, Miss Alia. Would you like to take over, sir?" The rookie asked Signas.

"Sure, why not" Signas simply answered with a sneer. Signas took the pictures and spread them out. He placed one in front to make sure that Alia saw it. It seems to be a one story metal building. From eyeballing it, this side of the building was around a half of a kilometer.

"What is that?" Asked Alia.

"This is a very old building." Signas informed, "An old museum, in fact. It was made for a new modern art exhibits. In fact, this building itself is art work: A giant maze. The owner of this establishment, however, got into some legal problems and had to foreclose. Since it is in the middle of nowhere and is on practically rock, no one really wanted it. A while back, some Mavericks were spotted here. It seems they were doing some scientific experiments with weird kinds of energy. Since the energy proved to be non-lethal, we figured they were simply screwing around. Over the past few weeks, though, there has been a lot of Maverick activity going on that was definitely Maverick activity. We observed it slightly more. And then we got this."

From the pile of picture, Signas pointed one out and everyone and their dog knew what.

"A mech. And I assume it is Vile's?" Alia asked, which was obvious since the Boba-Fett impersonator was scrubbing it and the way his body moved, you could almost hear the purple bastard whistling.

Signas nodded. "That one was taken a few days ago. It matches the mech. Vile was using when X and Zero were taken. So this may be a bit of a long shot, but hey, does it matter? But to be sure we are correct; we are having a conference meeting in the hour, so meeting in the bigger conference room. We don't want another incident like we had with that circus that one time, do we?"

Everyone nods and left.

--

_Back to the guy formally known as "Sigman…"_

---

Vile desperately tried to clean up the mess he made while Sigma started crying and cussing about his office. "Vile! What on earth posses you to suddenly barging into my office, uninvited I may add, without a knock." Sigma said with clenched teeth.

Vile mumbled under his breath, "Either your wrath of the rookie's"

"Eh, what was that?" Sigma glared at the purple reploid, truly not knowing what Vile said.

"Er...I said Stardust sent me to tell you that the cameras are operational."

Sigma blinked and smiled. "Great." Was all the bald one said.

Vile then again mumbled under his breath, "I don't really see the point, really."

This time Siggy heard him.

"And why would that me, hummm?" Sigma asked with a mostly annoyance and a dash of curiosity.

"Um...well, we saw the ghost already..." Vile said nervously.

"Saw? How did that happen?"

"Well...we went after X and Zero and we saw h-"

"You went after them without my order? And who is we?"

"Wasn't my fault, sir! Stardust made me do it!" He so was not taking the blame for this one, "And we really didn't attack them, we ran when we saw the ghost!"

"Look here, you, I...wait, the ghost was with the hunters?" Sigma's expression changed from anger to true curiosity.

"Um...yes?" Vile did

Sigma started to get excited. You could tell since he was shaking everywhere. Vile knew this would not be good. Even though enraging Sigma when he was already steamed was bad, making him angry when he was happy in the first place. The warning bells were going of under Vile's head.

Suddenly, Sigma grabbed Vile in a big bear hug and started to jump up and down. Vile had no choice but to go along with it. Vile could not get another word out because his chips were being shaken up and down with a force. With a sudden boom, the door opened and in entered Dynamo. Well, he flew in with smoke coming off his metallic body as he crashed to the floor. Right behind him Stardust walked in with a very mad look scaring her face and colored red (which so classed against her freckles). It was quickly replaced with a nervous look when she looked and saw the scaring scene.

Sigma saw Stardust and proceeded to grab her. He made her a part of the bear hug and the three were dancing in some sort of a three-some dance.

_(It might have been cute or hot if it were some other group of people. But, this was a very large, very bald robot who wore a constant sneer, a guy who had horrible purplish armor that so did not match those boots, and a girl in heavy armor whom might have made it decent look if it was not for the fact her color turned like a sheet of paper and she made an awful cat-howling sound while she was spun around)_

Sigma probably would have grabbed Dynamo, too, but Dynamo was currently on the ground and groaning with pain, instead of the pleasure he thought touching Stardust in an inappropriate place would have done.

"We did it! We did it!" Sigma kept singing over and over again while jumping up and down with his two followers.

"What did we do, sir?" Stardust said shakily.

"We killed them! We killed them!" Sigma now sang that.

"Well...maybe not..." Vile also said shakily, but it had nothing to do with the shaking; it had to do with pure fear.

The comment did stop Sigma from shaking the salt and pepper shakers around. "What?" Sigma's grip on the two tightened.

"Well...We have a tiny problem...the ghost and the hunter's have vanished..." Stardust said meekly.

"What?!" Sigma was grinding his teeth and gripped at the two harder. Luckily, Stardust was able to pop out (literally, she popped) of the bear hug-now-turning-into-the death hug. Vile could not do that; Sigma had grasped Stardust around her shoulders but had Vile' wrapped right around the second-in-command's chest; his arms and shoulder cannon acted like a hook around the meaty arms.

"Well, I looked, but they were not on any of the monitors." Stardust informed once she backed a distance away from Sigma, "Neither did I find the ghost."

Poor Vile was not getting any air for his precious cooling system, his body slowly starting to boil. Sigma was also getting hotter and hotter, but his was caused by his displeasure. He released Vile for a second, and then he picked up the poor Maverick and tossed him away. Stardust had stood up finally, to hopefully run away, but seeing what could be mistaken for a one-eyed one horned flying purple people eater, she choose to jumping back down to the safety it provided against flying monster. Dynamo got up but he was not quite as skilled Stardust was. He instead shouted, "I'm okay!" Not realizing the danger an airborne Maverick could cause.

Vile collided with him in mere moments.

* * *

Gate is in here because I want him to be. Stupid Mega Man X and its inability to keep characters long.


	7. Yep, right there in the first chapter

I never finished the last chapter of this story. I finished a big portion of it, but it got deleted while I was checking it on-line and the computer crashed shortly after. On one of the rare moments we actually got the computer on, it said the document was still there, but it was all blank. I restarted the computer yet again, opened the document and…nothing there. It broke my heart and that was why I stopped working on this. I was only able to salvage the first part (the chapter before this) because I saved it on my e-mail account. But now, I shall finally finish it because even if it sucks, it deserves an ending.

Thought I have improved in writing, I shall be writing like I did waaay back then. Maybe a little less crappy, but even after all these years…I remember the ending and everything leading up to it so, fun stuff. Now we begin:

**Chapter 7: ****Did I mention this story is terrible old?**

**By: Ghostwriter no. 3**

Disclaimer: Even after all these years, I still do not own the Megaman Series, but I've played all of them since then, even the Star Force Series. I even watched that crappy Battle Network Anime and I own all of the comics for Battle Network. Well, I have yet to play any of the Megaman XZ or ZX series, but that stuff cost money. Even though I've burned through various genres, I seem to always visit Megaman at least once a month because…I like it.

Author's Notes: this author's note is moved to the offical last chapter...so yah.

* * *

"Are you sure we are going the right way?" Asked Zero.

"Yes." The ghost said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"I mean, we've been walking for a bit and if you knew where we were going, we should be there."

"It's a bit longer because we have to stay between the walls. It's not a straight line. It's like…not a straight line."

"Oh…" Zero said. He stayed silently for a few moments. "So, are you sure we are going the right way?"

"ZERO!" X shouted and angrily glaring at the red-bot. "You have asked that question fifteen times already, and that was after I decided counter. But you've been asking that question since we started, which has been going on for thirty-six minutes and four seconds. Since we haven't gone around in circles yet, so we are getting somewhere! You understand?!" The blue-bot put his hands on his head.

Zero stopped his steps, and then crossed his arms over his chest. "…I don't see why you are yelling. Why are you yelling? There is a child about." He rolled his eyes.

"Technically, I'm not a child anymore. I mean, I am, but have been around at least twenty years like this. I also live with another specter being who has been known to randomly curse and throw object on a good day." She supplied, not liking that they talked about her as if she was not here. But then she smile, "Ooooh, it's a pretty thing on the ground!" She bent over, inspecting it, and decided to writer about it. The two 'adults' moved along.

"See? Be considerate and be a good role model." Zero stated.

"Well…" X let out defeated.

Zero then said with a smirk, "Then again, I wonder if 'death' is an impressionable age."

"Zero!" X hissed, but then the Commander of the 17th Unit grasped his chin. "Though you make a point. Even though she cannot actually get hurt because of her…predicament, we should be watching out for her."

"Yah. And you know what else?"

"What?" X asked, still deep in thought.

"Are you sure we are going the right way?"

"Zero!"

"Ohhh…boys?" A familiar girl voice called out. They looked behind them to see that the ghost was gone. The both looked at each other and shrugged and followed the voice around the corner to see what was up.

And then they saw what was up, and both stared quietly for a few seconds. Right before them was a giant pile of metal work. It filled the whole area, except with a little area near the top.

"Oh. Yah. That would be a problem." Zero comment

"Wow…" X asked, looking at the…thing.

The little ghost crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't remember this."

"You walk through walls, you've been leading us somewhere, and you don't remember a stupid pile of tetanus-death?" Zero asked, looking down at the little girl with a sharp glared.

X opened his mouth and begin talking carefully, "You know, technically, none of us here can get tetanus, so it not-"

"I know that, X! That's not the point!" Zero screamed at his shorter friend.

"…Don't yell at me…" X said quietly and rolled his eyes.

The ghost girl frowned and tilted her head, not even paying attention to the skirmish between the two. "I didn't actually go down ever stretch of the area to explore every little corner." She glared back at Zero, "I am not an anal person." Then she giggled. "I said anal!"

X, still upset at being scolded by Zero, look over the structure of the…structure. "Is that a bicycle?"

Zero pointed to another section, "I think that thing is several water-bottles stuck together." Zero comment.

"What's that one?" The little ghost asked.

"Which one?" X said, mapping each and every one of the pieces. It was a little hard, as several things appeared to be broken or tired around to other things or were half buried under other things.

"The peachy one. The one near the left side-no, our left, not the mountain's," The girl stated once she stopped the lud-heads glanced in the wrong direction. But she focused back on her spotted prize. "It sort of looks like a rocket, except it's domey on top instead of pointy."

"I can't spot it." Zero comment, always a fan of 'Where is Waldo' types of searches. They were as testing as they were fun and had so many little scenes going on inside them that if someone got bored with finding the actual guy, they could observe everything else. Perfect for the attention-challenged that was Zero.

"It also has those two blasters on the side." She remarked with frown, "They looked a little warped or the exhaust ports are closed, but they are on the side."

X and Zero kept looking, and looking and looking. Then Zero grinned. "Oh yah, I think I see it." He pointed to the supposed object, "Though, that doesn't look like a Rocket. That looks like a-"

"Zero!" X shrilled out and cut the other reploid off before the other warrior could finish. The blue bot blushed while the blushed color bot turned a light-blue tint. Quickly, the two men covered the little ghostie's eyes.

Of course, it was unsuccessful as the spectral being stepped through their fingers and glared back at the two. "What the heck is you guys' problem?" She turned around to face the pile, looked at the area for a few seconds, then stomped her feet. "Oh, well, now I lost it."

"Oh thank you." X mumbled quietly. He was not sure what age human children learned about the birds and the bees, but he did not want to be the one to explain that particular issue to anyone. He looked over the whole structure, partially to see if any other inappropriate looking items propped out of the mess. "Well, if we are careful, we could probably climb it, but the other side might be a bit of a problem since for all we know there are honest-to-goodness spikes on the other side. I really do not want to impale my optic sensors on something."

Zero smirked and cracked his knuckled, "Safety, blah. I can make it to the top and the other side."

X raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"I'm a pro, X." Zero remarked coolly and brushed off his armor, "You and the little kid can just watch and be amazed." Zero shook out any kinks still present in his joints, both internally and externally.

"You going to bolt up this thing or do it carefully?" X asked.

"I take option C." Zero said, giving a thumb up before glancing around the pile carefully, as if mapping out his route.

"Alright." X stepped back and said with caution, but a little grin appeared on his face.

Zero moved in front of the pile, just a foot away from what appeared to be a tree made out of bells. He crouched with a wild look on his face before he jumped with incredible power and speed. He sailed in the air, his hair whipping behind him like a fine-silk scarf. He volleyed to under a third up to the side. And he came down onto the jagged part of the hill. Zero landed on it with a wobble. The piece of metal he land off started to disjointed, but Zero already flipped over in the air to land his hands perfectly on a large bar sticking out. For a moment, he balanced vertically up on his hands, body held up straight in the air before he let himself fall, spinning around it aerobatic style for one uneven circle, then a second smoother cycle. With enough momentum behind him, he flung himself off of the bar and went sailing back through the air effortlessly.

The little ghost watching, mouth open and gasping as the red bot more or less dancing the in the air and on shards of unbreakable pieces or artwork. X shook his head, but chuckled, commented lightly the words, "Show-off," And watched his best friend with a bit of pride.

Now, Zero was one of the most skilled hunters ever to exist. He held all the highest records in all of the simulations (barring shooting, defensive battle predicaments, and crowed control tactics) as well as created quite a many of his own 'adventures' once he got bored with what was available. To sum it up: Zero was no A hunter for nothing. He was perfect in balance and movement among other things.

However, even Zero could not predict the total future.

Him jumping around the pile made certain sections start to wobble that were already wobbly to begin with. Even though the structure set on balance with each other little piece, just one little shift could break the whole thing.

When Zero pointed his right-foot to what he though was a stable platform, just above it the supports shifted and spilled, causing the object he planned to land on to start slipping. Zero's eyes opened and he thought, 'Oh crap.' He had the barest of seconds to move his feet to keep himself up. Zero was able to do that, but he had to almost half split on something made him stand on almost a point. Even though it looked like he would fall, Zero skillfully caught himself. Yet, Zero only bounced about half way up the hill. And the shift at the bottom caused a bunch of stuff near the top tumbled down, in Zero's direction. Zero looked around but knew from his posture that he would have to time to prepare another jump. He had enough time to stare and said out-loud, "Oh Sh-"

Even though Zero was himself perfect in balance, it did not help when the objects he was situated on were unstable. And so the Commander of the 0 unit became a red-and-yellow slinking that made noises like this:

"Ah-" ***crash* **"-What the-" ***smash* **"-Son of A-" ***bump* **"-Holy- ***bang* **"-Oh God- ***strike* **"-It Doesn't Bend That-" ***hit* **"-Ooff-" ***slice* **"-Aaaaaaaah-" ***splotch* **"-Nooooo-" ***slap* **"-Hey, I'm flyi-" ***knock* **"-Back-" ***whack* **"-Daaaam-" ***cuff* **"-his suc-" ***rap* **"-Aaaaaaaaaaah-" ***crack* **"…" ***snap* **"…" ***thump* **"…" ***skid* **"….ooooooo…."

After the noise, a new slightly smaller pile fell around the bottom. Somewhere under it a certain red droid laid buried. It was clear he was there; pieces of the red armor appeared under openings in the debris, a hand stuck out in a funny way, and his hair appeared through and in the mass of garbage.

His two companions had stood still, knowing they could do nothing but watch with anxiety. The whole fall lasted under thirty seconds. The little one could not have grab him or hold him; the best she could have done was freeze up his circuits and hope his brain shut off. All she did was have her eyes follow him as he bounced up and down.

X flinched at each sound, but him jumping on there would have just made him a victim along with Zero. He opted to covering the girls ears (he was not to sure if it would actually do any good). During the loud noises of Zero's many impacts, the other man let out curses that probably killed all of the remaining pixies in the world.

When everything settled, X lifted his arms away from the rather cold child. "Zero…" X whispered carefully, not sure if speaking would be good.

All he got was a pitiful groan.

The most depressing thing about the whole situation was the fact the little opening at the top was still quite little. Oh, and the next shift of crap to fall on the fallen Hunter after another thirty seconds of near total silence. That stung, too.

"If you guys want…" The ghost began quietly, looking slowly back and forth between X and what she assumed was Zero's right foot. "I can, like, go on the other side and check…things."

"…Yep." X simply mumbled.

There was another groan, which convinced the ghostie that was another confirmation.

---

_With the bad-guys…_

---

"Where the heck could they have gone?!"

"Well, it's a big place, and we did not have enough screens to monitor everything."

Vile and Stardust were quickly skimming and scanning through all the video data they had at their disposal. It was a quite a big task and they were rather snippy with one another due to it.

Sigma sat in his throne-like chair, drumming his fingers. "I am not pleased with this. I'm stating it riiiight now." It did cause the two servants to flinch for one second, then work faster. Sigma let a sigh, "Give me estimates, now."

The two stood up, saluted, and took turns speaking, "Alright, we do know that they have not escaped." Vile stated.

"The have been no teleportation and our shields are still up, so there is no way for them leave." Starburst commented as well.

"So they are all here?" Sigma asked calmly

"Yes…but." Vile commented a little nervously.

"Buuuut?"

"But," there are places where we haven't quite marked with surveillance."

"And why didn't we do that?" Sigma asked with a glare.

"We ran out of wires." Stardust said quietly. "It is a big place, and we don't exactly have a large amount of funds.

"And since we can't see the area, what do you think we should do now?" Sigma asked lowly and leaned down in his chair to look at the two.

"We should probably investigate those areas with our own two eyes." Vile remarked.

"And…why aren't you two…doing this?" Sigma asked through clenched teeth.

"…Because?" Stardust replied oh-so-intelligent like, but she tried to sound as sweet and innocent as she could. It might work, after all.

Sigma was silent for a moment, and then he stood up and shouted, "GO DO IT NOW!" That got Stardust and Vile moving their metal butts. Sigma sat back down and grabbed his big, baldhead in his palm, just wonder if he should not just blow the place to pieces.

---

_On the big pile…_

---

"-then I told the guy, "Just take the name. It's not as if Atropos is inappropriate name, just sounds very old and means an old lady who cuts people, but it's an alright business name. You understand?"

"…you lost me at 'Cautions Division.'" X replied

"Oh." The ghost looked disappointed. "Well, basically it ends with this phone-call and he ends up not getting the position."

"That's kind of sad."

"Well, the next day, he meets this nice waitress, and they get married, like, six month later and him and the misses ran a grocery store. I wouldn't say it's a perfectly happy end, but it's a content and sweet ending."

"Hmmm…" X thought about it as he dug carefully while the girl next to him watched.

This had been going on for the last ten minutes. Before that, the little dead girl came back from the other side, reporting that each side was about identical in amount of crap, though each piece that formed it was just as numerous and just as different as the other side. X, after making sure Zero was alive enough to repair himself, slowly and carefully climbed up the mound. True, he disturbed it in his walked, but he never fell down.

"You okay there, Z?" X asked, just being the good friend he was.

Screw you both." Zero snarled up, still embarrassed and irate that he could not scale the pile. And a little prissy at X for getting up the top the boring way. And that their little friend could more or less float up there without any pain while something metal and twisty had twirled in his locks and ruined his hair a tad.

However, neither X or the ghost would let that get them down. They instead ignored the big baby and focused on their work. "I wonder why all this stuff is just all piled on here?" X contemplated aloud.

"Maybe it's a statement." The girl commented, a fist under her chin. "I mean, all this stuff looks like all the modern-art crap. So…it's a giant pile of art, which makes it in it's self a piece of modern-art crap."

"That could be it." X commented. "Though there are a lot of drag markets around this whole place. And some of this stuff looks pricy, yet it looks like someone carelessly through it together instead of taking the time to do so. Mavericks probably moved all this. It would be pretty hard for a human or even several to move all these items by hand. And rather dangerous, by how sharp some of these are. But what reason could they want with an empty building?" X started to get deep in thought, staring through the little opening he had made so far.

"I kind of would like to know, too." The girl commented to X's thoughts. "This place is boring and it sucks." Although her thoughts were a little less deep

"If I only knew what they were planning to do here…especially with…ah, you." X commented and looked her up and down, trying to be nice about his next couple of comments. "No offense, but even though they fail, there is usual a slightly thought-out purpose behind it. And really…You don't fit into something that is…life-threatening on our loves." X looked away, wondering if he should feel wrong about using the word 'life' to such a being. And for good measure, he added on an extra, "No offense."

"None taking. I'm actually a pacifist." The girl commented bubbly.

"Really? Me too!" X was happy to find common ground.

The ghost looked him over with a frown, "Um…no offensive, but you seem kinda…too decked out for pacifist."

"Well, I never said I was one all the time!"

Zero turned his back away from the pile. Not out of anger, just to guard their backs. Or to sleep on his. He yawned and stretched, starting to feel sleepy and a bit stiff now that his repairs were at 84%. He started to look himself over to make sure everything healed properly.

X looked at a lops-sided ball of metal with confusion. "This has a face on it. Why does it have a face on it?" After carefully inspecting it and making sure nothing he was on would fall to pieces if he pulled it out, X tossed it behind him, already knowing that due to the strength of his throw, it would be tossed away a safe distance from the pile. Unfortunately, he did not realize Zero took off his helmet for a moment to let his poor scalp breath.

A solid, metal thud sound hit the room. Zero fell over, flat on the ground. X thought it was the round object hitting and did not think to turn around.

The little ghost's eyes look blank for a moment, then she uttered, "I feel a great disturbance in the force."

"What?" X asked.

"What?" The girl asked back, blinking for a second.

"What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything."

"Yes, you did."

"No I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't."

"Really?"

"Yah."

"Oh…okay."

The little ghost tilted her head to the side, and asked carefully. "…You want to talk about it?"

"What?"

"You know, talk about it. You are hearing voice, it seems."

"Um…I think I'm good." X answered back, but rubbed the side of his head a little, wondering if it was time for a self-check on his systems.

As for Zero from his spot on the floor, he simply laid on the ground until he started to twitch. Then he slowly stood up, a wicked grinned spreading across his visage. It was not his drunk, lecherous grinned. It was a bad one. Then the laughter came. It was low, almost like a hum, but it soon became a throaty chuckle. "Finally." Zero's voice hissed out, but it lacked the lightness that Zero's voice usually held. "After all this time…I can finally begin the ravish I started so long ago. To be able to feel the warm of life essence of hundred running down my fingers. My chaos shall reign again and all who oppose me shall fall down to the light of my sword." More laughter. "And nobody would realize it, nobody could stop me…and even if they could, they'd be dead before they get closet enough. Just like last time!" Then the laughing started, again low, then slowly gaining in strength.

Meanwhile and totally oblivious to what damage he may have caused, X looked down at the next piece of debris in his way. It was square and held with a metallic backing, but covered in some sort of canvas. A battery pack also connected to the center for no reason X could tell. Yet again making sure nothing would collapse under and behind them, he carefully pulled it out. As nothing shifted, he paused a moment to flip it over and inspected the front. "Hey, it's a clock!"

The ghost leaned over and gazed at it, becoming equally as interested in the object as X had become. "Hey, it's a woman painted on the background." Indeed, it looked like a picture but on the left side, little pieces of metal without numbers form a circular around two equally metallic hands. The minute hand bent an odd way, but it continued to shift as if it wanted to keep moving.

"Okay, this isn't so bad. I'd hang this in my room." X may be a bot, but he could appreciate a fine piece of artwork.

The little ghost looked it over, then frowned. "Why does she have an onion on her lap?"

"Hmmm?" X had been busy looking more at the clock part and the fruit basket on the woman's head before he actually looked at the other areas of the painting. "What onion?"

"The one on her lap." The ghost touched the odd item that popped against the dark dress the woman wore. "The onion attached to the tube."

"Tube?" X gazed at the lap and saw the peculiar addition the girl spoke about prior. "Oh, um…hmmm, I'm not sure." X stared at it for a moment, then laughed, "Oh no, that's not an onion. That's a…a…ahhhhhh!" Without a response, he half-hazard tossed the damned thing away from them.

Let it not be said that while X can toss things in a spastic moment like a little girl who realized there was a spider on her favorite book, he does not throw like a little girl. In fact, as shown before, he throws hard and far.

Like an odd Frisbee, the clock picture went and it connected, or at least a corner, embedded itself into Zero's cranium while the Robot's back was turn and had been enjoying the sound of his laughter. The Red Wonder's eyes rolled in the back of his head. "What did you do that for?" The girl asked, glancing at X and not pleased he threw such a pretty thing away, though not looking at where it landed. Zero's knees folded under him, and he collapsed with a thump.

"That…you don't need to…see." Excuse, Excuse, somewhere around here, oh, Zero made a sound! "Why, look, Zero is in trouble." Then the sight part of his circuits caught up with the logical part of his circuits and, "Oh dear light, ZERO!" X would have rushed down to his fallen comrade, but when he stood up quickly, he already had to keep his balance since just his jerky movements caused a small shift in the pile. But it did not make him want to any less jump down to inspect his friend, as there was a big, sharp thing jammed into the side of Zero's head and it was his fault.

The ghost stared off for a moment, and says quietly, "And the world stayed right."

X may have commented about her strange talk in tongues, but as it was, Zero had something in his head a few inches deep. "Zero, are you alright?!" X was going to jump, he had to jump! That was his buddy down there…who he might have killed. Then, Zero started to twitch, and in dizzy motions, stood back up with groan. His head wobbled a little from the imbalanced, but he had yet to notice it actually stuck in his noggin. "Z, buddy, you okay?" X called frantically.

Hearing his name, Zero turned to glance up at X. "Yah, but it feels like I got a splitting head-ache. What happened?"

The ghost chuckled, and X glared down at her. She stuck out her tongue at him, added, "It was his own fault for not wearing his helmet," but left it at that.

X traced his gaze back to his friend, "Okay, what's the last thing you remembered?"

"Let me think…blood, warmth, old people, old-dead people, lots dead people, explosions…" He paused, then grinned and flapped his hands like an excited autistic child, "Oh yah! X, after we get out of here, can we go pick up the new zombie game?"

"Yah, we can do that." X commented, sighing with relief to see that no serious damage prevailed...so far. He then pointed to his temple and commented loudly, "You…you got something there."

"Huh?" Zero said, feeling the side of his head, and then felt the picture, "Oh." With a bit of a tug, he pulled out the picture. He dropped it to the ground and went to pick up his discarded helmet. Without worrying about the gapping hole in his head, which did slightly spark every now and then, he slid his helmet back on. It was now impossible to see the wound; the only clue was a slight stream of dark liquid running down the side of his face. But Zero ignored it to favor at the object that only moments ago found a home in his temple.

"You might not want to look at the picture." X warned and slightly cringed.

Zero inspected the painting further, then snorted and looked up at the two on the pile, "X, it's just a clock with a women sitting in the background watching the su-DEAR MAVERICK," He tossed the picture far away from him, "THAT should not be on a woman!"

* * *

And on that note…well, that is as good as any note to end a chapter, I think. I was going to add another section, but it starts some time later with the trio here. It fits, especially with what has happened. For the younger people, they won't get what is going on. For the old people, enjoy my childish joke at the end. That was added in with my gutter mind instead of my more innocently 13 year old brain that started this story.

It's been a bit since I updated, but Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia constantly calls my attention. So does work, but as work is not fun, we don't wish to care about it. Though I did say this was the last chapter, I mentioned I would be breaking this up. There will be three more chapters to follow, possibly four if I need to break it up a little more. They are all written; just need to be checked over. It takes a bit for me, folks. Hope I haven't kept anyone waiting too long!


	8. People don't deserve the credit they get

**Chapter 8**

**In which one Hunter plays Polo and the other does not.**

A chapter eight! I never thought this story could get to chapter eight! But it did! So, I don't want to spoil anything, except…this is where the stuff starts to happen. We are raising up to our climax, folks!

Of course, the title does say something about what one of the Hunters is going to do, but it's not a spoiler, so I did not do it this time! Enjoy the story!

Disclaimer: I've been playing Pokemon too much. No room for MegaMan…unless I get some Star Force games for my birthday, but I doubt it. I do not own Megman X and the rest of the reploids. I own Stardust as a character, but as she is a reploid, I cannot totally claim her concept. Use her if you wish, as long as I get credit for original creation. And as always for those who believe or not, the belief in spiritual entities can be or is true.

* * *

fA dead end. That was what faced them. After X spent over an hour carefully picking apart the top of the hill, after Zero climbed up it a third time (he tried a second time to climb up and help X work once he go over his wounds, both physical and mental, but fell back down another time after slipping on something wet and greases that could have been his own blood), after carefully squeezing through the hole they made, after skidding down from the top of the mound until they decided to screw all and jump off, after running away from the huge avalanche they cause in their wake, and after following the child another hour around what felt like going in a trapezoid, all they had to show for it was a lot of scratches and looks of despair.

Zero glared down at the specter being and frowned. "You said you knew where we were going." He was not quite bitter as he thought he should felt, but it was awesome getting one up on the child

"I did!" She cried. "This is the only other way. I swear!"

"Likely story."

"I'm not kidding."

"You know, she might not be wrong," X remarked, hoping to get the two to stop fighting, "This wall isn't like the surrounding walls. This was added only recently."

Zero tapped on the wall. "Well, that's a nice observation X, but unless there is a trick to it, we are just stuck looking at it."

The ghost poked her head threw walls. She then shouted something. "What?" X shouted back.

Another screech came, this time louder. "Kid we can't understand you! Um…come back?" Zero was at a lost on what the hell to call a ghost back from one side of a wall to another.

But indeed, she did pull back and announced, "There is totally another room on the other side…but I don't know how to get to it. Um…I mean, I can't think of another way around. Maybe if we go back and sort of come from the other way or…oh dear." She stopped when X started to pout. She looked over and saw the blond-haired robot pulled off his helmet to scratch his head while deep in though. Or…picking at his scab, but clearly he was deep in thought! So the girl followed suit.

Finally…she got and idea! The ghost picked up her little journal and wrote something down.

The next moment X sighed and leaned against the wall…

…and then the wall opened.

Zero and X already dove back around the corner, weapons drawn. Forever with caution and still thinking, Zero got a good idea, "Hey, girl, go check if someone is coming to kill us." It was not as if she could die or anything.

The little lady rolled her eyes, but looked down the way. "No one." She replied with annoyance.

The two came from their battle positions and peered down the direction. "This is a trap." X stated as a fact.

"No, you guys just needed some help." The little putts said.

"Help?" Zero looked down at the ghost.

"Yep…" She skimmed through her little journal. "There was a little panel hidden and Mr. X accidentally tapped it."

"And…how do you know this?" Zero asked while sliding his helmet back on, not wondering how she knew, but wondering why she would not have mentioned it in the first place instead of being annoying by sticking her head in random places.

"'Cause it say's in my book." She held up the book as if that alone was proof.

"What book?" Zero asked again, looking at the little pink book with fluff on it and wondering if he was seeing all the colors in the world right.

"This book." She waved it again.

"…That's the book you write in." X replied

"And?"

A pause while the two hunters looked between themselves. X waved his hands, "Woooo, wait a minute, are you telling me that…it says…everything."

"Weeeell…" She scratched her head. "Kinda, I guess."

"So wait," X thought for a moment on his next sentence, then asked, "Are you sort of like, god?"

"No…if I had been god, would I have been alive, now a ghost?" She asked bluntly.

"So…you're more like Jesus or something?" Zero asked. X gave him an eyebrow raise. Zero shrugged, "What? It's a valid question."

"No, I'm just very aware of my reality and the things around them." She commented bluntly.

X could have pointed out that is almost a God-like quality, but a better sentence popped in his head. "As oppose to Zero, whose reality is rather without understanding of the things around him." X commented lightly.

Zero turned and sneered, "Oh, think you're so witty, don'tcha?"

"I get a good one in every now and then." X beamed with pride.

"It doesn't make me feel good that I'm traveling with two people who act less mature then me." The ghostie mumbled lower then the two said people could hear.

X looked at the girl with curiosity, "So, what is in it?"

"In what?" The girl asked.

"Your book."

"Like I said. Stuff."

"Can I read it?" X asked.

"Sure." She gave it to X to read. X smiled and flipped to the current page and began to skim the words…

…_pages felt crisp, though not necessarily new. They lacked the smell of new paper and discolored. Yet the ink appearing on the paper shined against the light with a shoe-polish effect. It seemed so archaic to the current world, but almost…homely to touch something so basic. The dull light was enough to keep the words. The penmanship was not professional, but cheerful, with curves and circles being wide and hollow; an almost indication of a female and/or a child writer. However, it was not the writer reading these words this moment, but a different one. Blue-gloved hands held the pages, with equally blue eyes skimming the lines. And these were the lines he read:_

_The pages felt crisp, though not necessarily new. They lacked the smell of new paper and discolored. Yet the ink appearing on the paper shined against the light with a shoe-_

Zero suddenly grabbed the book and shouted loud. "We are NOT going to get on a time warp or anything! Let's go."

_Near the center of the maze…_

"Alright, Dynamo needs to get his fixed." The mercenary said, looking for something or another to get his fix. He had them hidden around in odd places.

"**Dynamo, report." **The reploid in question heard his name called through his systems.

He frowned, flinched, and made a little mocking-voice of Sigma to himself before turning on his com-link. "Yes, oh high one?" Tone dripping with sarcasm.

"**Don't be an ass." **

Dynamo made a face, but it was not as if Sigma could see it, so he asked, "No, thanks, great Lord and Master. Never. What do you need?"

"**We are starting the final phase of the operation."**

Dynamo understood the words Sigma said, but he had no clue what Sigma wanted him to do. So he made sure to get his confusion out in the open. "…What?"

"**Operate the machine." **The voice commanded to him.

Dynamo looked around, waiting to hear a big explosion of some sort to give him a hint. Since no sound besides Sigma's heavy breath entered into his processing, he again made sure to as a simple questions so that his continuing confusion really made it across the link, "Now?"

"**YES NOW! WHY WOULD I TELL YOU TO OPERATE SOMETHING IF I DIDN'T WANT IT OPERATED!"**

"Okay. You're mad. I understand, "Dynamo had been jeering him on purposes, but he wanted to see how far he could get. It was stupid, but Dynamo loved playing with death, "But from my point of view-"

"**DO IT!" **

Even though it was over the com-link, he could hear the yelling from all the way from where the boss-man was. Dynamo could feel the vibrations through the floor, not to mention inside his head. He had to rub the size of his head. "Got it, boy-yo." He cut the come link before his equivalent of eardrums burnt out. Now, to start this baby going…

_...rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrR_

Slowly and surely, X and Zero made their way through this new area, looking at every corner with suspicious. "This is a trap, I just know this is." X mumbled.

"Possibly, or we could have the surprise on them." Zero offered. "Maybe they don't know we are back here yet."

"Now you're just being hopefully."

"Maybe, but I just have a feeling."

"Huh."

Their companion, whom followed behind them quietly, suddenly wobbled in her stride. No, her step was fine; she actually wobbled. She frowned and looked around with surprise and fear. "Um…guys?" The little ghostie called, looking down at her see-through body.

"Hmmm?" X asked as both the bots turned around.

She gazed down at her body, waiting a moment before looking back up and shrugged, "Er…never mind."

All three started to walk again. "It's weird they don't have any little mechanoids around." Zero stated.

"You're complaining?" X asked with a little disbelief, considering the point he made on the lax security.

"Not really," Zero crossed his arms behind his head, "Just, there is always a patterns. We go to each of the out-post, fighting our way through hundreds of those things, then fight a Maverick General and then some. This is…this is different. It's almost as if they were trying to…throw us off?"

"You know what? Maybe they are." X replied, rethinking this whole set up. After about a half-dozen defeats, maybe the Mavericks were learning their lesson.

The ghost got a funny feeling again and stumbled yet again. She stood up, shock and fear coursing through her. It did it again! "Hey fellas?" She called out again.

"Yah?" Zero asked this time and they turned around again.

She paused again for ten seconds, waiting for something to happen. When the strange feeling did not hit, she simply scratched her head and sighed, "Oh, Never mind again."

Both reploids looked at each other, then looked at her for about another ten seconds with blank faces. Eventually, X shrugged while Zero sighed and the group continued on their merry way.

"The one thing I can't get is why they didn't just destroy us when they knocked us out. I mean, it's as if they are playing mind games with us. Why did they put us in here?" Zero asked, finally sounding peeved. "Sigma must have seen this in a movie."

"So, now you are complaining that we aren't dead?" X asked, a little surprised by the annoyance in his partner's voice.

"Okay, I didn't mean it like that. You know what I mean, right?"

The ghost girl started to walk in place, looking down at her feet, ignoring the conversation going on in front of her. She was waiting for it to happen. When the feeling hit, she automatically stood still and grinned at herself for her control and not needing to call the two warriors for help. She held her little head up high and began to follow them. Or tried to, at least. Once the child pulled her head out from the sky, she noticed how far ahead they were. She compensated by walking just a little faster, but she paused for a moment to scratch her head. This was when she noticed she was actually moving backwards while standing still! She looked at her feet and saw the floor slide under her shoes. It was not until she was jerk to the side that it seemed like a good time to shout, "Heeeeeeelp!"

Zero rolled his eyes, "Okay, kid, that is it. Three times is enough!" He turned around and opening his mouth ready to scream, but kept it slack after seeing just half her body peaking through a wall horizontally. He stopped in his ranted while his processors contemplated on how silly it looked.

X soon turned around due to the silence of Zero. However, he saw the scene. "Oh no!" X gasped out. He quickly sprinted after the ghost. He reached her and tried to pull her back, but his hands sliced through her as if he was grabbing fog. "This really sucks!" X exclaimed. Soon the only thing visible was her little hands wrapped around the doll as the wall stopped it. But then even her little hands vanished, making the doll dropped to the ground.

Zero soon made it over to the wall and picked it up the little doll, hanging it limply from his hands. Him and X exchanged a look, then heard an awful wailing reverberated from all around them.

Zero glanced over the doll again, "Well, I mean, she's dead already, so she can't…die." Zero said surprisingly hopeful.

"Yes, because something that dragged her away isn't dangerous!" X called. He then looked at Zero's hand before quickly snatching the doll from his grip. "Okay, you got her book and I got her doll. I think we can find her with these things." X sprinted down the hall, only stopping to glance at which direction he waned to take since both directions were not directions were the little ghost vanished behind.

Zero stared at the retreating form of his best friend, still confused over what just happened, "Do you even know what you just said? You want us to split up and use a diary and a toy to find a dead person?" Zero shouted, waving around said book for emphasize

X abruptly turned around and blinked. "I wasn't thinking about splitting up, but good idea!" X finally decided to go down the straight path. "I'll call you if I find her!"

Zero paused, just staring at the little thing in front of him. He was about to complain on how X had been annoyed earlier when they split up and how badly that was going to turn out, but another wail in the air. Zero had to sighed before he started to jog down another path, half wondering how terrible it would be if he burned some of the pages.

_Back to the center…_

Dynamo watched the machine whirl. It was somewhat pretty and made Dynamo wish he had something to experiment with that did not come from a can or a bottle or a cup…unless he put the tablet or sheet in said can, bottle, or cup.

Then _it_ flickered.

Dynamo blinked, wondering if he just saw what he thought he saw.

_It_ flickered again.

Dynamo knew this was not going to end on a good feeling. Nope, no good feeling

____

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

The emergency lights came on. Dynamo looked at the dead machine. He could hear the com-link beeping. Nothing good would come out of him speaking into the com-link. Nevertheless, he did turn on the link, partially because he knew if he talked now Sigma would be less likely to come and tear him a new one. And partially for the laughs. "Yah now?" He asked every so innocently.

"…What happened." Sigma at least started out calm. That was probably worst then the bald reploid cursing him out.

The Mercenary opened his mouth big and wide, but decided to be honest. "…As soon as I know, I'll tell you…" He already prepared himself for the yelling. Always with the yelling when it came to Sigma.

"DYNAMO!" He swore he could hear the screeching from where he was, the actual screeching from Sigma's area of the place. He could not hear the actual rant coming up; Sigma did not scream it loud enough.

Dynamo cut the light quickly. Instead he focused back on the machine. "I'm not a damn mechanic. Though…." And he thought about the quick fixes he used on the devices he always used, "I'll unplug it, plug it back in, and see what happens. Yah that'll do."

_Down one area…_

When the power went out, X already activated his night vision. He was built for this sort of stuff, after all. Still, he moved carefully. He was afraid to call out, in case he alerted a Maverick. He heard a little whimper of something that sounded much too young for any of the Mavericks he had encountered. "Hello?" He heard nothing, but another wail went off. "Kid?" No sound. X licked his lips. He then heard a low word that sounded like 'marrow.' "Huh?"

"Marco." Someone whispered quietly again.

X must have heard that wrong. Because it sounded like-

"Marco."

X bit his lip, wondering if he should play the game. "P-polo."

"Marco."

"Polo."

"Marco."

"Polo."

"Marco."

"Polo." And it went back and forth, back and forth for a good ten minutes since it was hard to navigate with all of the corner: No way to go in a straight line. At least the person who kept calling out also moved around.

"Marco."

X turned as saw…something. In the night vision, she showed up to be almost a black blur. It was…a bit creepy. "Polo?"

"I don't feel good." She replied with a sway in her body movements. It was weird to observe; as if she was smoke or something and puffed out in odd angles.

X decided not to bring that up and instead focused on her comment. "Well, that what would happen to a…person…when they are…" X stopped and rubbed the side of his head. "What did just happen?"

"I don't know…but I didn't like it." She pouted and suddenly sat down. "I wanna go home."

X, forever the good person, knelt down next to her and did his best to brush against her shoulder. He knew there was no way he could actually hold her and comfort her, but he could mimic the motions. He felt the coldness, even through his gloves, and wondered briefly if she could feel his finger float above or just touch her…form. "Don't worry. I'll figure out a way to send you back to…where ever it was you came from." X was not sure where cute, little, juvenile ghost girls live but by golly, he would figure out something. The said ghost lost a lot of stressfulness in her shoulders, but she still pouted and looked on the verge of tear. And randomly made a little wail that went straight to X's heart. "Okay, um…how can I make you feel better?"

"Can you turn the lights back on?"

X blinked, "Well, I would love to, but I don't know where the power comes from." X tilted his head, "Are you scared of the dark?"

"No…" She twisted her hands on the ground, "I'm afraid of being lonely."

X smiled. It was cute and an honest statement. "Well…I have ranidaphobia." He was willing to share.

"What's that?" The girl's gazed started to turn away from despair into something of curiosity.

"The fear of frogs."

The little girl stopped looking sad, though it traded with a frown. But it was a lot better then the depressing little dead-girl. "But…they're, like…frogs." She waved her hands, as if she had a frog in each palm.

"They also are rather slimly and their eye-balls roll behind their heads and they can lick said eyeballs." X pointed out. "Some of them even spit blood."

The girl thought about this, stood up, crossed her little arms over her chest, and glanced down at the robot-man. "Are you joking or are you serious?"

"Maybe…does it matter?" He asked slightly.

She shook her head, "No."

"Good." He clapped his hands, and then stood up with a little stretch. "Alright, this belongs to you, little lady." He held out the doll.

It was hard to see, but she smiled brightly and spun the little dolly around. "Oh Jack! You make me fell better!" She then glanced around, "Hey, where's my book?"

"Zero had it. We went looking for you. I'll contact him and hopefully I can get him near us. Freaky maze place." X touched the sided of his helmet. "Hey Z, I found our little lady. I'm not sure where I am, but I'm going to be clever and mark where I've been, over." He waited for a response. "Zero, did you read that, over?" Still no response. "Zero?" X tapped his helmet lightly. He received nothing. Not even a static signal. This does not bode well.

"Um…maybe he fell asleep?" She supplied hopefully.

"I wonder…" X imagined what could have happened.

_Obviously somewhere else…_

Zero's night vision went on the instant the power shut off. Not that he was that worried; he had several times practiced fighting with a blindfold over his eyes and been rather successful. However, he liked seeing, so he was not about to try it again. Beside, he was trying to look for a ghost. He needed all the help he could get.

Zero thought he heard something. He paused and looked around. There was nothing. He continued, but much more careful in his steps. He heard more scruffily, causing him to pause again. Now he was moving at a snail's pace as he checked each corner for anything suspicious. Then he found it and grinned.

There was old bucket head, guarding a corner. The bot turned to look down the hall Zero should be coming from, but seemed to be playing with a large piece of metal in his head. Zero already ducked back, still a grin on his face. Now, this could take some pratice, but if he played his cards right…

But first, he would need a distraction. What could Zero use as a distraction? He had little with him, save his armor, his sword, a book, a pen-oh wait. Zero looked at the little journal in his possession. Well, it looked sturdy and if a few pages popped out, well, he would not tell the little ghostie. Or, if she found out, he could lie and say Vile did it. It would not be totally lying, either. Yes, he could use it now and then later say it was all the Maverick's fault. Thinking himself clever, he dared to gaze around the corner at his target. Zero moved stealthy and quietly, but his smiled almost lighted the hallway. There were about two hallways he could duck behind, if Vile turned back around. He did once already. But he kept getting closer and closer and closer and then he tossed the book away from himself.

And the monkey took the banana. Vile turned around, to look at the fallen object. Zero sprung.

Unfortunately, Zero did not look down the second corridor closeted to Vile. He would have spotted the lone female Maverick coming that way. Stardust upon popping out from the corridor, and saw the book fly by and land a distant away down the other path. In a blind panic, she suddenly screamed, "AAAH, EYE-BALLS!" She meant to say was, "Ah, it is throwing stuff to poke out and eat my eyeballs," but the panic set in and in a blind run ran away from the book like an insane banshee, shocker out to protect herself from things that might climb out of the darkness.

Zero was air-born and only saw the pretty light before he flopped to the ground like a fish.

Stardust, for a moment, thought she did hit the ghost. But upon seeing it was Zero, her eyes popped out before…she grinned. "Yeeesss!" She hissed out, cheering for another job well done. Using her non-weaponed hand to buff her chest plate, the female bot called back to Vile. "Bravo in playing decoy."

"Playing whatnot?" Vile asked, picking up the journal. "Hey, how did this fly by?" He turned around and looked at the fallen Hunter. "Wait, now when the hell did that happened?"

"I swear if I was human, I would be having a head-ache." The female Maverick mumbled. Like she would admit it was all an accident! Stardust instead choose to gaze at her awesome weapon

So did Vile. "How does that work, anyways?" He asked

"What, this thing?" She pointed at her knuckle. "Think of it as a stun gun. It shoots out various shocks of electricity at various voltages." She pointed at a strip near the top after forming a fist in her hands, slightly pumping her fingers. The contact part sparked alive. "For more of a broad damage, I can use it like a knuckle. Ah, but here's the good part." She opened her palm for a moment, slid her thumb in, then closed the fist again. It charged again, but this time a small spike popped out of it. "This gives a more direct current and can puncture things. The back of the neck is a perfect point and it's not always covered." She cackled.

"It only stuns," Vile asked, clearly not impressed with the weapon (even though his facial expression were hard to read). After all, it was tiny and not a huge cannon that could blow up everything in its path nor was it a giant mech. that could stomp on anything in its path.

The girl rolled her eyes. "I mentioned that I can set it to different dosage of energy." She fiddled with something on the top of her hand. "This ones barely tick." Turned it again. "This one is similar to the voltage used in electro-shock therapy." Turn it again. "This is the stunned setting." Turned it one more time. "This is…painful."

"Am I to assume that you've master your weapon to a point to customize each power to a specific person and a specific level of affect?"

"Oh hell no. I just learn to guess on most of these. Most of the time, I just hit a random power and see what happens. Trial and error." She then grins like a crazy. "It's fun to be surprised." She turned it again, "Hey, let us see what…this does!" Stardust slammed the brace right into Vile's neck.

It caused the season veteran to twitch in his place. As soon as she pulls the weapon away from him, he shivers a little. Then he turned to her stiffly, "Don't…Ever…Do…That…Again…" He knees went knobby.

She looked at the weapon, face forming in a mocking frown, "What? I'm testing."

"Now, as a valued test subject, did you feel any pain?" Stardust asked with something that sounded nothing like an emotionless scientist but more like an emotion-filled Sadist.

"No." He stated simple.

"So…what did you feel?" This time she spoke to Vile as if he was a child.

He coughed a little. "After we drag him back, I need to clean my armor."

"What do you mean?" She asked, totally confused.

Vile quickly changed the subject, "Out of curiosity, why were you given the name 'Stardust?'"

"What do you mean?" Stardust asked again in an annoyed tone this time and stopped observing Vile's body language, as most people had to observe in order to know what the masked bot was trying to express, to tie up Zero, as they did before.

"What I mean is…why not something more…electrical." Vile supplied. The female bot paused in her cuffing to listen. "Or something more related to hand-to-hand. Or at least to your…thing. Why…Stardust for a name?"

She finished putting the bindings on, stood up tall and stalked over to glare up at Vile. While Vile was not a partially tall Maverick to begin with, Stardust was also a tiny bot and had to tilt her head to look at the openings in Vile's helmet. Though Vile was not fooled by her size; he saw the supposed tiny thing twist opponents in knots and bows just for the hell of it. And she had a look that made him feel like a tiny thing, even if her nose scrunched up in an otherwise cute manor.

"It is a motif! UNDERSTAND? Motif! My armor is based from the color of stars," She slammed her gloved palms to the most yellow-orange coloring on her armor, except for crystals coloring in red and her under-armor being a blue-white color, "And my helmet is the shape of a star," She indicated to the yellow five-point star framing her face. "It is based of the Star- part and the reason I have the -Dust part is because I have freckles!" She brushed her fingers over one side of her cheeks, across the bridge of her nose, to the other side of her face, "Get it? Staaaaaar…Duuuust." She crossed her arms over her chest, "Master Sigma is named because of a dead language alphabet as well as a few other meanings that I cannot think off. You're Vile because you happen to be Vile. THE NAMES HAVE MEANINGS!"

Vile did not reply quickly, but he replied slightly, "And Dynamo is named after the generator?"

"Dynamo is an idiot, so I don't care." She replied flatly.

"You still love me." The Mercenary in question replied over the com link.

"GET OFF MY LINE, BASTARD!" Stardust screamed

Vile already threw Zero over his shoulder, the one not with his lovely shoulder-cannon. "Alright, I may not see why we can't kill him now, but let's go tie him up…and let the child scare him with her teen death angst writing."

Stardust cut her yelling at Dynamo and glared at the other Maverick, "You want me to hurt you, don't you?"

"No. Quite the opposite, actually" He almost appeared to brushed his armor, and then looked at the girl with embarrassment, "How many of those do you got?"

"Of what?" She asked suspiciously.

"Your…shockers."

"A few…" Stardust grew more suspicious, "Why?"

"…Can I have one of those for later, ah, personal use?"

_Back to our two other heroes…_

X thought about it, and came to this conclusion:

"Oh, Zero is screwed."

"You know, you don't really have much faith in your buddy."

"That's because you don't know him like I do." Oh, all the stick situations filtered through X's mind.

"Well, if he got 'napped, they probably took him to," She waved her hands and doll around, trying to think of the proper meaning of the noun she wished to use, "Wherever bad guys take their prisoner…place."

X frowned at her, "Aren't you suppose to be a writer?"

Oh did she ever glare at him, "You know what? I could just go wandering around some more and NOT show you where the bad guys are. Out of my comfort zone here, Mr. X. I've several times been ready to curl up in the corner, but I don't. My little dead heart happily gives you help." She crossed her arms over her chest and turned away.

"Okay, I'm sorry. Just…worried they put him in an uncomfortably situation that at a later time, he will blame me about." X sighed. It always seemed to happen

But the ghost girl smiled and saw the real reason for the complaint behind the one X stated, "You guys are sort of like family, huh?"

X finally let a smile appear on his face, "He is my best friend and in some ways my mentor."

"He doesn't seem like an old fart, though."

"Actually, I'm older then him."

"Really?"

"Yah." He wonder briefly if he should mention why he was older then Zero, but decided that he did not need some funny looks from her.

"I once knew this guy. He was kind of a mentor, but he smelled funny."

Besides, the girl had the mentality of a pre-pubescent girl with bouts of ADHD. And he did not needed to get into his life stories with a child. "Nice to hear…but, do you know exactly were they would hold him?" X hoped they could get back on track.

"Um…well, if this had several floors or enclosed rooms, I'd say it would be in one of those places…but this place is all the same level and not too many locked places, except leading over in this area, which means no other floors. I did spot a few little closest, but they were still being used as closets…"

X nodded, thinking. What did Zero have that could be tracked to him? As X was a clever boy, it did not take him long to think of a possibility, "Hey, could you find your book?"

"What do you mean?" What she wanted to say is, 'I have a book?'

"Zero has your little journal. Can you, like, find it?" As a clever boy X was, he did not have the right vocabulary to explain what to call a child ghost being psychically linked to the book that was any worst then saying a child ghost was psychically linked to a book.

"Um…" She thought for a moment, "Well, I never actually go out of my way to get it, but I usually stumbled upon it. It won't do either of us any good if I get pulled away again, though."

"True enough," X now thought about that little problem, "You think I might happen again?"

"I don't know…it could," She pouted sadly; "It scares me."

X smiled, "Hey, not a worry, for I'll find you again. How about that?" It was in his nature to make people feel better.

She smiled brightly up at him, her fears put to an ease. "Well, we better find Mr. Zero, right?"

"Yep. And finally a way we can get out." X was getting a little sick of it all. This was an obscure place, even for Mavericks.

"Yah!" The little child cheers, and both start on their merry way. But after only a few steps, the girl turns to look up at Megaman X, "You know, you don't seem too worried they could be talking him apart piece by piece just to hear him beg like a baby."

It would seem logical that these thoughts would crop up in the thought circuits of the worry-wart that happened to be X. But the comment did not faze him. He already shrugged and began explaining the nature of things, "Eh…Mavericks are more 'Hit it until it stays dead with a bat' instead of performing brain surgery, except for the occasional doctor in the group who goes insane. And they rather keep their experiments alive, and I doubt any of them would suffer here. They always tend to be rather grouchy. Besides…Zero, no matter the loss, no matter the situation, he always seems to find a way back from the dead." He stated that statement rather cheerfully for a guy talking about his best coming back from the dead.

The girl paused in her step. She thought the statement was rather off-kilter, too, "Ah…" X continued to walked ahead of her while she frowned, "Hey, what did you mean by the dead thing? Mr. X?" She chased after the other.

_To the Head Quarters we go…_

"Miss Alia?" A spotter-in-training asked.

"Yeeeees?" The blond reploid asked.

"Remember how you said if something interesting happened at one of the areas we suspected of Maverick Activity being located in we should report it to you right away?"

"Yeeeees?"

"It, um…happened."

Alia was about to take another spoonful of ice-cream in her mouth, but froze in mid-bite, mouth open and spoon only inches away from the gullet. "Come again?"

"Yah…there was a big spike in power…then it vanished, so we began checking and what we though were just storage readers were…not." The poor, noncreative robot began.

"And…what were they?" Alia asked calmly, her spoon now set back into the ice-cream as she reached for another delectable, delicious, and delightful bite.

"Well…six signals…and two of them were Commander X and Zero." A silence as the spoon hovered again. Into the awaiting mouth, "Ma'am?"

Alia sighed and set her spoon down. "Call an emergency meeting in the wings and get the gear ready." Seeing the subordinate still just standing, she slammed her fist (it still grasped the spoon) down on the table, "On the Double!"

"Yes Ma'am!" The reploid cheer, looking ready to charge. He jumped out of the room in under a second.

Alia braced herself to stand up, but looked down at her treat. She glanced out the door and so no one. "…Ice-cream first," The spotter replied with a shrug before taking a bite. "Mmmmm, bubble-gum flavor."

* * *

God, I should have had this done sooner. If you could not tell, not much wit to the title. Because the rest of the titles have been winners, after all. Stupid FF shorted my rrr's, too. Oh well. The climax is just around the corner, kiddies! I'd give more comment, but I wanna get this up! More annoying notes next chapter, then!


	9. I don't feel as bad as I say I do

**Chapter 9**

**Zero fans need not apply.**

* * *

First, I AM A ZERO FAN! I think he is cool, calm, and the master of the sword and generally butt-kickery. But, I also think mindless violence is funny, and since X is way too nice for that, Zero gets it. And don't worry. He'll kick lots of butt later. And he comes back with some witty comebacks. Which, you know, the said witty comebacks gets him hit again. Such a vindictive cycle. *giggles for a bit*

On an important note, there will be another chapter after this, and possible an Epilogue, mattering on how everything get's spaced out. Not sure yet. Have to find out how big I want this chapter. I see the end, and it saddens me. But I've got another MegaMan X project I've put on the back burner, so I'll dig that up. Yep, focus on that more. *hides KH stuff away from the MegaMan fans* Yep yep yep.

Disclaimer: I still haven't gotten the next Star Force games, but I will…maybe. But I don't own the rights to MegaMan or any of its characters. Stardust is of my creation, even if she is a reploid, but take her and have fun with her…so long as I get credit for making her. And as I always say, the study of the paranormal is a continuing field which has no clear answers to. However, in these last couple of chapter, I've taken real liabilities over what a ghost or poltergeist can or can't do. So forgive anything perceived as disrespect to the dead.

* * *

Zero felt a familiar waking up sensation that he had become use to after all these years. It was bad and he knew the future would be equally as bad. He opened his eyes and noticed how the dim the whole room glowed. It was bad now and he knew the future would be worst. Then he felt his arms were bound somehow. It was now worst and he knew his future was at the bottom of the hole. Then he could see the company he kept (or kept him) and knew his future just going to really, really, really suck.

"Good morning, Zero." Vile said with a sneer in his voice, "How are you feeling?"

Zero, the quick wit and giant smart-ass he was, put on a visible sneer and said, "My back feels pretty straight, no harm in my eyes, but I have to say that service hear rather blows." He should have figured that he may get a shot in the gut, but he grinned through it. So worth it.

"Let me kill him noooow!" Vile demanded.

Stardust did her hardest to not let Vile kill him, straining against the other Maverick. "Remember, Master Sigma said no for us!" The girl said with her teeth tight. Stardust maybe strong, but Vile wasn't a high-ranking Maverick and consider Sigma's second hand man for nothing. Her metal boots were scraping as she tried to become a powerful ancor.

Oh, Zero just had to comment on that whole situation, "Yes, better listen to Sigma, you lap dog. Good think his female dog is butch enough to handle the situation." First he got another shoulder-cannon shot right in his stomach, then the said female dog stared him down, approached him (With one hand keeping the still crazed Vile at bay). She struck him with a fist on his waist armor and that finally got the grin off his face.

"Do you make him feel pain?" Vile asked in a mixture of rage and joy. Joy because of Zero's possible discomfort and rage because he did not cause it.

"Not quite." Stardust commented, quite happily with what she done as she twirled her little weapon around.

"What do you mean?" Vile asked, pausing from his struggles.

Zero looked down, "I can't feel my legs." He appeared shocked at this development.

"And I bet a few other things between that area, too." The woman said with a sneer.

Vile stopped with trying to kill the other and gave Stardust a peculiar look, "I am impressed, yet scared for my pieces."

"Well, I guess you better not call me a dog then, huh?" She replied with a wide and sadistic smile.

The Master himself made his dramatic entrance right after their dialogue. He, of course, designed him self in his typical large self: Big, Bald, and Burly. His usually crap-eating grin displayed on his visage, with his dark eyes finishing the look. Sigma even wore a new cape. Of course, this one looked slightly like a curtain, but it shimmered and looked soft to the touch, so he thought it perfect suited (and if he ran really fast, it would fly behind him, like he was flying!).

"Well Zero," the giant reploid began, still grinning, "I sure this is a surprise for you. Bet you didn't guess it was me, huh?"

"Actually, me and X came to that conclusion when we first woke up." Zero said quite calmly, considering he was fact to face with the head Maverick himself, was chained against something, could not feel his legs. Then again, this was Zero, so these usually important details of terror were merely trifling troubles.

Sigma hissed, "You fib."

'Oh here we go again,' thought Zero, but he decided to explain it. It would be funny to see what the dome-head would do. Besides, he did not have much to loose at the moment: He still could not feel below the waist. "Well, you are the only one who would think this would be the perfect place to do something nefarious. I am still not quite sure what you wanted to do, but never the less; this is probably some elaborate get-up that will surely explode in your face. Doesn't help your lackeys kept mentioning you."

Sigma turned his glare away from Zero to his soldiers, "What? You mentioned me before I entered?"

Both subordinates looked rather scared, "Well," Vile began unsteadily, "You never mentioned this time we were suppose to not mention you're return, Sir."

"It's a default rule!" He shouted

"It is?" Stardust asked quickly and quietly. She looked around nervously; pretty much anywhere not at Sigma, "Well, then, um…for the past couple of weeks, I've been telling everyone you came back. I even made t-shirts about it. We had a large convention and blogs about it." A pause. "Me and Vile even planned a surprise party." A pause. "I order banners." A pause. "They'll be done tomorrow."

Sigma glared at the both of them, probably imaging the torment and proper punishment for their insolence. Well, not insolence. More for their stupidity.

Vile sighed, "I suppose I'll have to cancel the caterer."

"I just got bumped back down to rookie, didn't I?" Stardust stated with an upside-down smile.

"We are going to talk about this later." Sigma said through his teeth. He turned back to Zero and put on his regular grin, "I bet you are wondering why we haven't killed you yet."

"I have a few ideas. And by ideas, I mean jokes." Zero should not have been surprised by the fist contacted with his jaw. Okay, he was not surprised contact; just by the pain. Ouch.

"Rhetorical questions!" Sigma screamed loudly. He kept his grin while his voice dropped down to a quieter pitch. "As I was saying, the reason we haven't killed you yet is we aren't going to be the one to kill you."

"Well good job on that one. Goodness knows that you guys haven't been too successful in the past. Great you decided to get some help," Zero swore he could not stop himself. They just came out. The next punch that came to him hurt, but he still laughed around the pain in his gut.

"Oh very nice. But soon you'll be screaming and you won't be able to stop." Sigma warned. Zero did try to come up with something, but nothing too workable yet. That and he still caught his breath from the last one. Right in the breathing controls! "We have rigged quite a surprise for you here." Sigma said, almost in a singsong tone. "It's very unorthodox, but that's why I love this. I was hoping it would have gotten you and X by now. I'm usually a patient man, but something the process must be sped up. Lucky for you, we lost the power. But as soon as everything is fully functioning, you shall mean you're Doom!" Sigma was on a roll now, "For soon brought to your presents shall be the depth of the dead. You'll face a terrible, frightening-"

Suddenly, Dynamo appears with a loud slamming of the door, "Hey, just to warn you guys, the power is starting to come back on. I fixed it up so the machine won't explode everything. But everyone better be careful. There will be a slight discharge in the air so you-"

_Shhhhhwoooop!_

The good news; the power started back on.

The bad news; a bit of static clung to the air. Everyone who possessed mechanical parts shivered.

"-might feel…discomfort." Dynamo said, with a little shiver of himself, "Wow." Everyone had to pause after that as body parts shivered still a little all over.

Sigma glared at the mercenary, "You've ruined the moment! The dramatic one!"

Dynamo rolled his eyes, but still held his large smile on, "What moment?" Then Dynamo spotted the pinned Zero and a completely new set of grin appeared on his face, "Hey sissy-hair."

"I'd say bite me, but if you took it to heart, I'd loose an arm." Zero replied, as smooth and flawless as all the rest. At least this time, Zero suffered no damage. Similar to Zero, insults just rolled of Dynamo and the mercenary liked to play a little before he went for the strike.

And play he did, "Well, I tease you some more, but you apparently are tied up at the moment. Knew you liked bondage, but did not take you for a grouper. Is this a private party or can anyone joins?"

Zero opened his mouth for another retort, but, "Dynamo!" Sigma shouted at his hired help.

"Whaaaat?" Dyanamo rolled his eyes and made sure to sound annoyed about the interruption. And to sound like a big, blue-haired child.

"What was that discharge about?" The Maverick of Terror asked.

"I told you, I'm not a dang mechanic." Dynamo stated but did not necessarily look as unhappy as he sounded, "I think I had to do something about grounding and maybe replace certain wires with other wires, but I just fixed it how I fix things: Various glues, Duck tape, and stable and banging it with a hammer. If you wanted the job done right, you should have gotten mech fetish," He pointed to Vile, "Or Sparkles over there," He pointed to Stardust, "To fix the big machine that is supposed to be important to you. Not the mercenary who is hired to just blow up things, which I have been lack of doing. You'll make my skill rusty, you know."

"I do not have a fetish," Vile mumbled.

"I am not Sparkles," Stardust huffed.

Both looked ready to do unspeakable horrors to the not-really-Maverick. Dynamo ignored them, "So if there is a slight issue, then it's your problem, not mine."

"Are you complaining about the work I give you?" Sigma scowled.

Dynamo snorted, "Heck no. It's like vacation." He then set a particular happy grin to Sigma, "However, you are complaining about the work I did, not me complaining about the work you give me. So if the work I do that you tell me to do is beyond my expertise, then it is not my fault."

"He's got you there." Zero said, with a groan following. The groan was from the hit in his gut he received afterwards. He rather regretted that one. But if you were on a roll, then you were on a roll.

Sigma backed away from his last punch and glared at Zero directly in the eye, "Well Zero, since you are eager to learn you're fate, I'll tell you the special surprise we have in store for you."

"Which is?"

"We have confiscated a deadly poltergeist and it is currently on the lose. Any questions?"

"Yah." Zero said with a blank look, "What's a poltergeist?"

_In an emergency meeting…_

"Alright, listen up here." Signas commanded. Which was quite an easy job as he was the model of a Commander; tall, proud, broad shoulders, and shined to a polish. The sun twinkled off the metal shoulder guards. He glanced at all of the warriors and support units before him, whether recent recruits or veterans. "Now, we are dealing with a particular situation. Though we out-number the forces in sheer numbers in this assault, we are dealing with some of the highest-ranking Mavericks in existence, include Sigma himself. Now, I know some of you are scared, but remember my friends, we all sighed up for this. We are Maverick Hunters. Our job, no! Our mission is to destroy these foul threats against ourselves and the citizens we protect." He took a deep breath, then shouted, "Are you with me?"

His speech was moving, even if it short. It sent a sense of pride. Except…

No one shouted as if they believed was not helping get the ball rolling. No one beamed with pride or started clapping. There were several people staring at shock at him. There were people covering their mouths. He wondered if they were sick or perhaps someone had yet again replaced the Flag with the Maverick Hunter Symbol yet again with something stupid. Then he heard a few choked breaths. He glared and the rage came. He did not care what was happening; they would show the proper respect!

"Why are all you people laughing? This is a serious matter of life and death! Our top Commanders are there. The heroes of many Maverick Wars are in there, trapped, being exposed to who knows what? If you all were in a similar situation, by golly, they would be out trying to save your worthless keesters. And you are giggle like little schoolchildren! I am half-tempted to just blast the lot of you! What! What can be so funny?" When nobody answered, he bent down at the waist (A few in the meeting received a big freak-out by this, as many did not know that Signas could actually bend at the waist. It seemed impossible due to the nature of his built) and looked ready to shoot lasers from his eyes. "If every one of you little braggets decides to refuse me an answer, I'll find you a more appropriate work. I need a new secretary!" That made everyone stand at attention. It was a well-known fact that Signas held a backlogged the size of their own command center.

With that threat, one young Hunter raised her hand, "Sir?" Signas signaled the recruit to come forward, appearing ready to fall right on her if the answer displeased him (that was just , "We mean no respect, but…there's a bird on your shoulder…and it went to the bathroom." Even though Signas only twitched slightly after her answer, it looked like something broke behind his eyes, so she quickly followed with a, "Sir?" and wishing she was anywhere else but right here.

He simply pulled himself up and commanded quietly, "Just get ready for the assault."

_Back to our friends, just a different set…_

When the power came back on, X and the ghost girl quickly hid in a closet, hoping not to get spotted. They weren't, of course. The four Mavericks were more interested in each other or punching Zero. X would have jumped out during one of these points, but he knew that Zero would not want him to give away his position unless Zero himself was in imminent threat. That, and maybe X did feel that Zero deserves some of those blast and bashes he received (Even X had a bit of a bad side, but it was rather tiny and only popped out after long, stressful events, usually involving Zero).

However, X did comment quietly at the last thing Sigma said, "Oh wow?" He was not really sure if he should be worried or not. On one hand, a poltergeist seemed like a scary thing. On the other hand, Zero had made a point about how…insane/inane this idea seemed to be.

The ghost girl, for her hand, frowned, "It's rather difficult to capture a poltergeist. They sometimes go into long periods of inactiveness and it is hard to read them because they don't take on forms."

"How would you know that?" X asked, and then remembered while she gave him a withered look, "Oh yah." He let out a little sigh, "Here would be the point where I would say ghost don't exit, but you are right here."

She smiled, "You've taking this a lot better then most have."

X shrugged, "I've seen a lot of things. You're rather tamed. Sort of like Casper." Though that had to make X wonder, which he did out loud, "A deadly poltergeist, huh? Man, when Sigma was revived, some chips must have gotten put in wrong. This is a little out there, even for Sigma. And usually there is a pattern to his madness." Make over half a dozen Maverick Generals and all other extras he was known to complete.

"Killer ghost?" The girl asked.

X, again, shrugged, "Well, it appears that they wanted a more free-body being and you seem to fit the bill in that regard."

"Fit the bill?" She blinked and her eyes grew wide, "Oooooh."

X looked at her when she cooed out that note, "I don't like that sound, dear."

She bit her non-lip, "Well, if I were supposed to guess, I think the deadly poltergeist the people are talking about is me."

"Well, I figured that out already. Sigma simply grabbed the closest thing that looked like supernatural and just did not realize it was a little girl." X mumbled lightly

"No, he knew where he was looking for." Said little girl spoke with light embarrassment.

X took just one second to process this new information, "So wait…you are supposed to be some sort of killer ghost?" X yet again looked her over, "You don't look like a killer. Or act like one." She looked rather harmless, cuddling her little doll. Of course, people had always called him trust, but really, right in front of him was female Casper. The worst she looked ready to do was give someone a paper-cut or a mean scolding.

"I said he knew where he was looking for, not who he was looking for. They were in the right location. But…they didn't want me." She commented idly

"Then who?" X asked, very much not liking where this conversation was going.

"They wanted Brooks."

"Brooks?"

"Yah." She said, "He's my room mate."

"Oh." Then X's eyes went wide, "Wait…you LIVE with a killer ghost?

The little one stood up straight, put one had on her hip (doll attached) and glared up at X, "First off, that's offensive. I prefer the term bunking, not "live with" since neither of us are alive anymore!"

"Sorry." X mumbled, sadly.

"Second, he's not a killer ghost."

"…Really?" X asked, not sure how this conversation was going to continue. Somehow, this kid seemed to pull a few surprises from her background. Then again, it would be a very Sigma thing if it turned out the ghost the Master Maverick wanted was a clown (in both figurative and literal sense of the noun).

The child remind silent for a moment before visibly licking her lips and began to ramble, "Okay, he might have, liked, accidentally scared a girl…or maybe two down some steps and that may have lead to their untimely death. And maybe, yah, this nun who came by, but he did not know the floor was weak when she fell through when she went running. Oh, and if he scared someone to the point where they died of fright, well, it is still natural causes. Even if it happens half a dozen times, heart attacks are totally nature." She answered rather amicably.

"Oh wow." X commented. Yep, full of surprises.

_Back to the Mavericks and Co…_

"-And that's what is going to happen to you when it comes." Sigma said with finality to his tone.

"Huh." Zero drew the sound out, "May I asked something?"

"Yes, you may." Sigma answered.

"Did you just put your head up your butt by accident this time or are you just trying to be creative with your failures since they suck so much?" Zero received a good backhand for that little comment. It stung. But he did mumble something.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Sigma asked.

"Can you do that again, but on the other cheek?" Zero chided, a little bit of fluids leaking out the side. "I'm all about balance, and I want the other side to match."

Sigma glared at him, but did do what was ask of him.

Zero groaned, but soon shouted with a hissing grin, "There we go!"

"Want more?" Sigma threatened.

Zero just laughed, sounding slight desperate, "Oh I can't feel it anymore! I wouldn't make a differences, you putz!"

Sigma turned away from the red bot and gazed around the room, "You want to know why you are chained up?" Zero opened his mouth, but Sigma already shouted again, "Rhetorical questions!"

"My answer is still kinky bondage, by the way." Dynamo interrupted. "Just for the record."

Sigma did not attack Dynamo, but he pointed his meating-looking hands in his direction. "You are THIS close! "Sigma warned with a hiss. However, the big man cleared his throat. "Anyone else?" Sigma said out-loud, but kept his eye on Dynamo. Dynamo kept just the smallest hint of a smile on his face. "Good." Sigma turned away and looked back at Zero. Dynamos choose at this moment to make faces behind Sigma's back as he spoke. Unfortunately, the two other lackeys had their attention also set on Zero, so they do not see the vulgar display to their master. Zero did, and it does brighten his mood a little. "Now, the reason you are stuck here at the moment is because we are going to bring our little friend up here." Dynamo wiggled his fingers and mouth Sigma's words.

"You are going to summon a killer ghost right here…to possibly do some bodily harm to me, at least." Zero stated.

"Yes." Sigma replied. Dynamo puts a hand on his hip and does an impressive nod.

Silence.

"I'm surprised you don't have any comments. Just moments before your mouth ran faster then our motors." Sigma said with a sneer. Dynamo also mimicked a sneer, but Sigma turned quickly around to glower at the Mercenary. Dynamo's face already turn back to his usually grin, with a rocking motioning to his feet. Sigma growled under his breath, but choose to look back at Zero. After that, Dynamo gave Zero a double-thumbs up

Zero smirked, but followed Dynamo's example and put on a neutral look when Sigma turned back to gaze at Zero. "No, no comment." Zero stated with boredom, "I think mine and your statements spoke for themselves. I mean, I could not have thought of a better joke." That was a knee in his chest. He let out a huff of air as he keeled over (the best he could while hanging from a wall). Zero managed enough breath to add a musical tone to his words, "Hey, don't be angry with me because all the Kings horses and all the Kings men put you together again in the wrong sockets, Humpty." That was a cannon-ball punch, sending his head slamming against the wall or whatever vertical surface he hung against. He finally let out a pitiful sound, deciding maybe it was time for intermission.

"Now that I have your complete observation, listen well." Sigma stated. He pointed to the machine behind Zero. "Listen now, because I will only say this once…"

_One explanation that would use up another page…_

"Got all that?" Sigma asked.

Zero remained silent, due to the pain caused by previous hits, but through the whole explanation, he had kept his mouth shut. His repair systems caught up to some of the damage and he felt better. Zero glanced at Sigma. "Well…one little things." He commented lightly

"Which is?"

"See, the brilliance of my last comment was not only a crack at how many times you've been blown to bits and that you aren't fully functional because your troopers are crappy at restoring you and you are bald. It's so perfect." Zero then got a nice blast in his face, "The hell?" He looked at the perpetrator, who was none other then, "What the, Dynamo?"

"Sorry, I got bored." Dynamo lowered his weapon, "You people are just going on and on. What's a fella to do?"

"Blow off, you Mr. Frosty looking mother heifer!" Zero bellowed out, tears of pain just pricking the corner of his eyes. But he would not cry!

"No counter attack?" Stardust asked, yawning. Even the other sadists were getting bored with their Master's Plan and their apparent un-activeness pertaining to it.

"Well, I'm not bored anymore." Dynamo said with a shrugged, "And if I so choose to, I can trash-talk back without needed to flex my muscles, as you will. Besides, in Zero's defense, Sigma should have stopped asking him if he had any questions. That's just asking for some retort from a prisoner."

"OH, YOU SIDE WITH ME NOW AFTER SHOOTING ME IN THE FACE?" Zero screamed from his perch.

"Hey," Dynamo brushed off the screaming like it was nothing and stated his argument, "I'll defend you against Sigma with words just because I can, but as soon as this plan fails, I'll kick the crap out of you and your blueberry buddy when he catches up."

"Oh, my plan is going to fail, huh?" Sigma growled, and then proceeded to knock Zero with another cannon-ball punch.

Zero could only garble a response for a moment, as he started to see sparks behind his eyes. He eventually shook his head, which unnoticed to Zero but noticed to everyone else in the room and in the area made a sound as if something was loose in his head, and glared straight at Sigma. "WHY? I didn't say anything this time."

Sigma glared at the down hunter, "Do I need a reason to torture you? Your existent pisses me off enough." He then focused his rage back to Dynamo. "You are being disputant. Please explain."

Dynamo shrugged, but looked happy with himself, "Hey, it's not my fault his and his friends are incredibly lucky and your luck is down the pooper." He then brought a hand under his chin, as if deeply contemplating the existence of life (though unlikely, since this was Dynamo), "It is one of the proofs that Karma is real."

Vile glared at him with his hidden glare, "And your lucky is spotless, huh?"

Instead of becoming offended, Dynamo just laughed, "Do you seem my paycheck, just for standing around and gawking while we all play piñata with Zero? I considered myself a very fortunate individual, with life and wealth. And I give you guys a discount because you all throw in weapons and the usual guarantee of explosions somewhere." He crossed his arms behind his head, "I get paid a lot more for other things."

Sigma had enough. He held up his hands and shouted, "Everyone, stop it, because the machine goes on and he dies! UNDERSTAND?" He finished with a point to the still pained Hunter.

Dynamo, sharing much the same mouth disease which Zero current held, decided to put his own little two sense on the subject, "Well, the way you've been using him as a punching bag, I think he'll be long destroyed before the specter comes and kills him. Or, whatever it is going to do. You know, you rather explained on what you were going to do, but it doesn't quite make much sense. I mean, if you want it to scare Zero to death, I don't think him seeing a ghost is going to do it. Now, maybe Vile without his helmet would do the trick. Besides, I swear I saw the ghost and it looked like a little-"

Sigma interrupted him, "Machine on, Dynamo."

Dynamo simply ignored him and kept on going with his point, "Now, if you wanted to destroy your subordinate here," Dynamo pointed at Stardust, "That's the way to go because according to what Vile told me, she's terrified of the things that go bump in the night…that aren't us."

Stardust glared at her fellow subsidiary, "Vile!" She hissed out the name in…vileness. After all, he was the only one who knew of this weakness

Normally, his name spoke in such a way was something he always tried to get out of his victims, but coming from this particular female was not going to turn out with him as a victor of anything, "It came up. It was an accident, I swear." She kept glaring at him in silence. "Stop doing that!"

Dynamo, smiling in his mind for causing discord among those two, kept his smile just for Sigma in the next moment, "Now what are we going to accomplish by sticking a dead person on a non-living person? How do you even know it is going to work?"

"MACHINE ON NOW, DYNAMO."

"Alright, alright, let us see what happens. Though either way, Zero is probably going to be in FUBAR'd for a bit." Dynamo mumbled.

Zero just glared at all of the people in the room, "You are all clown-hats and if you have not realized it, I'm still right here, you know!" He felt his lower body shake, but not actually anything in his lower body. But he saw something hit a leg without any discomfort, "Hah! Didn't feel that one, psychos!" He had that one up.

_Stuck in the closet…_

X and the ghost, safe to say, were in a bit of a pickle. And by pickle, they were going to be in a baaad situation.

"What are we going to do?" The child asked in panic, shuffling back and forth, "They are expecting a killer ghost! And he ain't here!"

"I know." X replied solemnly, but then he frowned and sent it to her, "Wait a minute, you said he wasn't a killer."

"Quit nit-picking. I'm thinking!"

"Alright…" X sighed, "I wish there was a way we could stop that machine from affecting you."

"What do you mean?" She asked curiously, though not quite forgetting her panic.

"Well, what are you going to do when they turn it back on?" X replied, wondering if he could get a good shot off here. Not that he knew really where to shoot on the giant…metallic pottery-looking thing.

"I still don't get what you mean." Now the panic faded into curiosity.

"When it drags you out, they are going to start asking question, seeing as you aren't threatening at all, and I don't think you want-" X began, but was interrupted by a honest to God squeal.

"Drag me out?" She cut him off.

X blinked and now looked at her with curiosity, "Wait a minute, you did not understand that the big thing Dynamo is turning on was the same thing that pulled you before and probably caused that small power outage?"

"…No…" The ghost replied shyly, kind of feeling a little stupid.

"But Sigma explained it just a moment ago." Now X shouted in a loud whisper.

"…I didn't understand anything he really said." The girl said with a small shrug, visibly apologizing.

"…" X's mouth dropped a little as he stared at her.

"I'm bad with the scientific stuff." She stated to defend herself from looking too silly. Though she should really know that admitting fault was still saying you have faults.

"…" His mouth dropped a little more.

"Well, do you know how you run?" She asked with blunt accusation.

X's maw dropped a little more, and then he got his voice back and screamed back, "YES! Trust me, I know how I run." He was about ready to draw it out for her if need be if she tried to argue there was no way he could. And no, he would not forgive her for being ignorant about how things run because things are kind of sucking right now.

But she did not. She just let out a little, "Oh…"

Then…

…brrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRR

"It's starting up…It's starting up." The girl started to pounce around in even more of a state of terror.

"Don't panic!" X warned with a loud whisper. But it was not as if he could grab her or something. Worst he would do is fall right through her and create more noise. Alerting the Mavericks of their presence. Which would only hinder things currently.

"But you said it's gonna pull me!" She cried out with despair, but at least kept it a quite cry.

"Alright…um…" X was half-tempted to hit himself in the head. Might send some jolts into the right areas to produce some ideas. But what to do? Or course, it was not as if the Mavericks could do anything to the poor girl. Unless that machine could somehow contain a vortex of doom or some sort of ghost-destroying ray-beams. Okay, now he was just thinking silly. But since there was a ghost in front of him, what were the limits to the imagination?

Unexpectedly, the girl stood straight and took a deep breath, "Okay, This is the part of the story where the climax happens." The girl mumbled. She could already feel that strange tug again, making things just worst that she was closer the stupid things. "Several things could happen. I could show myself, hoping that is a distraction long enough for you to do something." He was not in the mood to deal with this side of the strange girl. Nor was X in no mood to jump out half-hazard and start blowing up everything in his way (That was more Zero's style, but he was tied up at the moment and could not for X to follow his lead). However, he noticed that the little ghost girl's feet were beginning to slide, so he needed to come up with something because he was suppose to be the smart one and think up smart plans. The little girl continued to speak, "However, it might not surprise them so much and since they have a machine that could drag me, so who knows what else they can do? I mean, I got me here and it's rather hard to do that to a dead person." She took a few steps back, trying to hold herself away from the machine. "But, I could also hide behind the machine and they will simple think it is broken. Then, if they shut it off, maybe I can scare them and with that distraction, you can take them. You can take…four, right?" X gave her a look, but decided not to comment because that sounded suspiciously like the first plan, except with a longer waiting time. But heck, with the way things were going, worst comes to worst; he would have to try it. But the girl was not finished. "Or…we could give them what they want. Except, not really." X gave her eye another look, but she smiled winked, and floated away with a scream.

* * *

Oh my god, I finally got this checked. Sorry folks, it has been a hectic couple of months. But I am glad I finally have the time to do something with this. Well, to the few dedicated readers, thanks for the notice. There will be one more chapters, plus an epilogue (which is a chapter, just shorter and happier).


	10. No, she really isn't God

**Chapter 10**

**The Home-run Stretch.**

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This is the last real chapter! There will be an epilogue, but it's only a small little thing and hopefully will get out faster then prior chapters. Nothing else to say, except I am really going to be sad when I don't have to work on this story any more…

Disclaimer: I do own anything MegaMan X related. Stardust is mine, but she's a reploid, and anyone can take her just as long as they give credit and maybe drop me a pm. Ghost Girl, maybe not so much. And while the paranormal should be open for study, I have gone insane with it. Forgive me, believers!

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Everyone heard a high-pitch screeched, which slowly lowered to a dull roar. Everyone around the room looked around.

"The hell is that noise?" Vile asked, apparently to Stardust.

However, the female bot suddenly dove at Vile and started whimpering, hiding against him. It would not be such a problem, but Vile was uncomfortable comforting the usually blood thirsty girl. She might get mad if he touched the wrong part of the armor.

Dynamo looked around, not quite scared, but still spooked.

Sigma looked pretty happy with himself.

Zero looked bored, but it could easily been him being slightly in a half-state of pain. His body, after all, was working to repair itself. Or he had the robot equivalent of a stroke. All valid suggestions.

But the wailing stopped…right on top of the machine. Everyone turned to look up (Except for Zero. At the way his body was tied, he could not look up, especially with his helmet). Nothing was there…except a mist. Which was odd, because the machine was not on fire this time.

But then the mist got more condensed and more condensed and it started to take shape. It soon looked like a person with limbs, a torso, and a head. Then it looked like an adult, of average height. Then it looked like a man, with the short bit of hair, thick legs, and nothing curvy in the chest area. Then it soon filled out to a ghostly person, with a face and a glare.

The ghost on top stared down at everyone. Everyone staring up at the ghost (Again, baring Zero because he was tied down and could not tilt his head back and into the machine to look above. Also, Stardust, who at one look of the man, buried back into Vile with a childish whine and started to actually act like the woman she simply looked like). It was a rather surreal moment.

It became more surreal with the ghost opened his mouth, "What the $% is going on?"

"Oh I like this guy already." Dynamo mumbled, already pulling a beverage from out of no where.

Nobody else really had a response to say, except for Zero, who voiced out, "What was that? Is that a person! Up there? Hello?" He slammed his head back, smarting himself on the metal contraptions. He let out his own string of curse words.

"I ask again," The guy above said, "What the $% is going on?"

Vile looked around, and then looked at the woman against him. "Can…can I just put her somewhere?" He glared down at his chest, "This is rather unprofessional, Stardust."

"Yes yes yes, you two aren't going to be needed for the moment." Sigma waved, glancing up at the top of the structure.

Vile bowed the best he could and half-dragged the woman out of the room. Sigma assessed the situation for a moment, opened his mouth…

And was interrupted from the screaming outside room:

"YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE FEARS I HAVE!" That was clearly the female's voice.

And a muffled, male voice came back, "Hey, all I'm saying is you knew about this project and you said you did not have any problems about this."

"IT'S DIFFERENT WHEN YOU COFRONT IT!"

"IT'S. A. GHOST! I mean, yes, the Master believes he can use it to cause damage to Zero, but…it is already dead…"

"THAT'S THE PROBLEM! It is dead and I can't kill it! It is…terrifying."

"Alright, I am going to leave you out here and you deal with it all. Okay?" There was nothing else said as Vile came back into the room. Everyone stared at him, even the ghost. It confused him, "What?"

"Sooo…nobody is gonna tell me what the $% is going on?" The ghost floating above asked.

"Spirit, shall I ask for your name?" Sigma stated more then asked.

"Um…" The ghost paused, "Brooks." Another pause. "Why?"

"So I have a name to go by." Sigma replied still quite civilly.

"I mean why, as in, why am I here. This doesn't look like a $%^&y old rotten house. This looks like a…" A gaze around the room. "Well, I don't know what you would call it, but it ain't a rotten house, now is it?"

"Wow, his observation skills are awesome. You know how to pick them, Sigma." Dynamo whispered loudly. A hand cannon and a shoulder cannon were soon pointed at his directions while two Mavericks glared at him. Dynamo shrugged and replied innocently, "Hey, it was funny. You guys just can't appreciate my humor."

The ghost growled, "Why am I here, on this giant toilet look…blue thing?"

Sigma kept grinning, "I shall explain it all. Come down come down here and I will explain everything."

"I would," The ghost stressed, "But I'm stuck up here!"

"Oh yes…" Sigma waved to his hired help, "Dynamo, shut it off."

Vile had to speak up, "You know, sire, I could handle it. I do construct things as part my occupation as well as my full-time hobby." He then send (an assumed) dirty look to Dynamo, "And I make sure nothing I watch breaks."

Dynamo, though he did not care much if his own building skills were not up to part with Vile's, just had to make a comment, "First off, I hope you're mechanical skills are much better then your consoling skills because you are unable to deal with the fair gender." And just because he could, he made a second comment, "But I really doubt that they are any better then your consoling skills because second off, you were the one who had brought a broken mech. unit to a battle at the beginning of this whole thing." Seeing Vile shake in his spot just made it all the more wonderful with Dynamo shut it all off.

…_RRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr_

"There you go." Dynamo stated, brushing his hands off and sending a particularly happy grin to Vile.

The ghost, noticing the device he sat on was finally off, floated down from his forced perched and landed on the floor without a sound.

Zero then shouted, "Ooooh, that's what you saw!" Zero must be forgiven; he had some damage to his processes.

Sigma waved a hand to the ghost, pulling the conversation back to him, "So here is the end of your doom that I hoped would haunt you for your time since here, but we had to force it along a bit."

Now Zero was puzzled, "Wait, so it wasn't that little-"

_Back to X…_

"Zero, shut up!" X mumbled quietly.

_Back to everyone else…_

Lucky for X, the ghost must have been reading his mind, because though his head kept staring at the Mavericks, A part behind his back poked Zero right in the center of his chest. Zero felt a familiar chill and practically screeched out, "Daaaahhhh!"

"Let the grow-ups talk for a second!" Said the rough voice of Brooks, yet something odd happened from Zero's point of view. A little bubbled formed against his back, taking the shape of a familiar specter's head. That quickly sobered Zero out of the cold stupor he felt. But his mouth remained opened. He may have made another squeal, but the little ghostie's face scolded at him and whispered harshly, "Just play along, okay? I know what I am doing." The front part kept a blank look at the three reploids in the room. The three reploids in the room looked blank back, not sure what they should be doing or if they should be doing something to him.

Zero may or may not have believed her in any other situations, but his stare focused solely on the head shrinking back into the body. The head winked at him before it shrunk back into the body, and that was it for Zero. "Oh damn, X warned me it would happen, but I didn't believe him. But yep, my brain has finally gone to the crapper." He was not even silent about the comment. Then the head popped out of the back one more time to face-palm itself and touched Zero yet again. "Daaaahhhh!"

Sigma was very pleased with these strange sounds and words Zero spoke while the ghost apparently did nothing. So state the Commander of a murdering bunch of robots should: "Ooooh, do more of that!"

"Do what?" The ghost asked. "I mind my own damn business, and suddenly I find myself jacked here. What gives?"

"Glad you asked." Sigma stated with crossed arms and a slick smile. "What I want you to do is do your business on this," he pointed at the restrained Zero, still in confinement and in chills, "Sap."

"What business?"

"Of destruction!" Sigma shouted to the air, screaming, and then laughing.

A dramatic pause.

"…Whhhhy?" The ghost asked obnoxiously.

"Because you destroy things, especially…" Sigma paused to ponder, a hand on his chin. "What was the word that Stardust used?"

"People who tend to try to look like super-model dolls." Vile stated somehow without breaking into a little fit of giggles.

Dynamo, on the other hand, could not stop the sounds escaping his teeth, "He kills Barbie?" For once, Dynamo's smile was lost as his processes tried to comprehend what was just suggestion.

Zero was not amused, "Oh, good job, throw in a joke about my looks, too. EVEN with the BRUISES, I'M STILL the BEST LOOKING one in this room." All Zero had left were his words and his anger. And he might be having some trouble with his words, if the shouting was not on purposes.

Of course, Dynamo did have a wit to match Zero. Soon, his grin returned back and he said on the fly, "I know, Zero. You are such a pretty thing and all the girls wish they could be you and all the boys wish they could be with you."

"COME HERE SO I CAN KNOCK YOU TEETH OUT!" Zero threatened. He struggled, rag-doll legs flaring slightly at his waist's jerky movements.

Dynamo ignored Zero's ranting for the moment because a thought crept into his mind. . He suddenly commented lightly, "Ah, I get it now."

"Get what?" Vile asked, quite amused with the way Zero's feet swung about.

"Sigma really has gone off the deep end." As if it was a super epiphany he finally figured it out, "I mean, I knew this was as crazy like a cracker-jack box, but seeing it now, in focus, playing out in front of me, this is a terrible idea." He even made a mouth of 'wow.'

Sigma may have had a retort or commanded him with some form of death, but he just smiled viciously at Dynamo, "It is working right now, isn't it?"

And just when Sigma said that, "HOLD on one second, $ers!" This came from the ghost.

"Then again, you might be wrong, Sigma." Dynamo stated bluntly, having a feeling this was gonna be as bad as it was funny.

"First off, I do not kill anyone." The ghost even stressed the one, by holding a finger up, "Tragic accidents happen around me to people I just meet and I despise. But I do not actually take a weapon or my own body to really kill someone," The ghost started to glide around the room, circling around the room, and every person in the room, making everyone understood his rant and raving. He got to the middle of the room and held up two fingers. "Second off, I do not primarily target unnaturally alter women. I may dislike them, and think it's a nice blow off to environment, but I don't hate." He finally paused his steps and looked straight at the crew. "Leading that off to third off, I am not going to kill this…guy. Being. Thing. Whatever. Because, I only dislike those with clearly fake, blonde hair extensions, eyes that are too bright, and try to be too tall."

There was a pause in the room. The reploids (baring Zero) looked over Zero with a careful eye.

Then the ghost looked at Zero over with a careful day.

Zero looked at everyone with cautious eyes. "What?"

The pause continued in the room before the ghost visible let out a breath of air with a little shrugged before his next string of comments, "Okay, so he looks fake. But…he kinda looks likes crap at the moment instead of the type that thinks the world should be handed to him on a silver platter because his chest is round and he doesn't have…anything between…" The ghost words slowly drew up. He looked at the green gems on his armor and the white armor around his hips.

Zero understood it this time, and was he ever bitter about it, "Oh, just take another crack at me. I'm use to it by now. Just know that I've killed each and every one of you at one point in you're life." He then glared at the ghost, "And you are already dead."

The ghost blinked, and then sent a personal frown to the bound bot. The ghost tilted his head and hovered in front of Zero, as if debating to do something to Zero. Zero made sure to do a wink. The ghost blinked, but abrupt faced.

Since the apparent tirade was done, Dynamo irate yet again, "So…seeing as Zero is tied up…you could do it right now. Seriously. Why the…" Dynamo waved his hands around, "The…dramatics."

Sigma opened his mouth and started to say, "I think I already explained it being about it never-"

"Yes, I realize Karma isn't you're friend, but you could hire-"

Sigma made sure to interrupt the mercenary to take control of the conversation, "And how many times have you succeeded, Dynamo?"

"Oh just point out my faults, but you still paid me to come-'

"Hey jerks!" The ghost called out over the baddies, "You know, I haven't agreed t'anything. Just so you know."

Sigma did not seem the least bit worried. "Oh, I figured this might happen. So, here is my demand, specter. You take care of Zero, the chained man, and you shall be returned to your haunt."

"Even if I could attack something and even if it could kill them that route, why would I do it, especially for you? I bet I could figure out my way back home." The ghost said in annoyance.

"Not if you are trapped." Sigma replied smoothly. "Vile, will you do the honors?"

"Of course, Master." Vile bowed and went to a familiar level and pulled it.

_rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRR…_

And there it went on again. In a matter of moments, he disappeared in a mist and then re-formed at the top. He glared down at the group. From the side, a little lump formed out of the side. Of course, the Mavericks could not tell what the shape was.

But…

_From a different point of observation…_

X, from his little closet, could see what formed from the side of the ghost. It was a…head. A little girl's…head. The familiar face of the familiar ghost girl started to mouth words. It took a few moments for X to read her lips, "Go. Right. Now." She either said that or, "Show. Rita. Meow." The last one seemed highly illogically, so he assumed that the first three words he thought up were the ones he needed to follow. He did have to get over the thought about seeing a head just grow out of a dead person's body, but he took it better then Zero.

He needed to figure out a way on how to get the jump on the Mavericks. He gazed around and saw how the lights flickered while the machine operated. That's when X got an idea and he went to the back of the closet.

After a few minutes, the machine turned off.

…_RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrr_

Sigma looked at the ghost with a sneer, "Now see, I could be mean and leave you up there if you don't do what I want you to do. But if you do what I want you to do, then I will let you down."

Dynamo turned to Vile and whispered, "Can he really leave that thing running forever?"

"Well, it matters." Vile replied, equally as quiet, "How good of a repair job did you do?"

"I remember using duck-tape and a penny." He counted on his fingers up to three, "And some paperclips." Dynamo held his palms out about fourth a meter, "Big ones."

"So, clearly, the Master has to bluff." Vile replied, their hushed conversation stopped when Sigma began speaking again.

"So, what is your answer now?" Sigma asked.

Before anyone could say anything, Stardust appeared at the doorway.

_A few minutes earlier…_

Stardust had been carefully monitoring the systems that ran everything, including for the device that could keep the ghost at bay. It was the perfect job for her; she could stay far away from the ghost and she could do something to keep it the hell away from her. However, she was carefully monitoring her breathing at the same time.

Still distracted by her "issues," the usually careful girl did not pay attention to her flank and then…

Everything went black.

_Present…_

Indeed, Stardust stood in the doorway. Her eyes also looked blankly ahead.

"What is the issue now?" Sigma asked. A familiar headache started to pulse under his chrome-dome.

The bot simply stood her ground, as if making a point. The she flew!

It was not strange thought, considering a large chuck of units created with and/or eventually received some sort of equipment that allows them to fly. The problem with that situation was Stardust did not have any wings on her body or her armor or any hidden equipment to make her levitate by any means.

So seeing her fly straight at Vile paused all the men in the room for a moment to processes. Add another pause to observe the lack of graceful flying. Most definitely not a unit built with wings. Her limbs went flying around like a rag doll, yet the odd blank look held on her face.

Vile's reaction was to catch her. So he held out his arms, but she was going fast enough to not only counter-act Vile's friction, but Vile's gravity as well. And they both went straight at Sigma. Now, his friction was enough to keep him still…and his gravity pulled him straight on his butt

Dynamo only had one comment, "Damn X, you have one hellva arm. I figured you would be like a girl in that department."

X chose not to comment on the department comment. He simply charged in the room and ran straight to Zero. He only had a small window of time to get his partner untied.

"Hey X, how are you?" Zero said with a cocky grin and his eyes still slightly focused.

X glanced at him suspiciously. "Z, did they drug you."

"Pfff, no. I wish." Then one of Zero's eyes focused slowly towards a dent in the wall while his other eye stayed on X.

"Okay…" He went to his bindings, "I'm just going to untie you, and hope getting fluid to your arms will help you, okay?

"Sounds like a Plan!" Zero said, trying to salute. Of course, it was hard to do with tied hands. He then looked over at the mess that was the Mavericks. "Why did you throw her? You could have used her as a shield or a bargaining chip."

"Not my style." X mumbled, carrying prying off the metal in case they were booby-trapped.

With a raised eyebrow, Zero asked, "And throwing petite women is?"

"Mavericks will not think twice about shooting through their own team mates. I say I actually let her live for another day." X answered back with a bit of a bite.

"Well aren't you just the gentleman?"

From the pile of Mavericks, Sigma uttered one thing, "I knew I forgot something." Then he struggled to get up from the limbs of his subordinates.

"Hey X?"

"Yes Zero?"

"We have a problem." Zero stated, watching as his bonds started to unlock.

"Oh really, what?" X mumbled in a rush, not really wanting to hear about a problem.

With the binds released, Zero stayed up for a total of four seconds before he collapsed on himself and fell to the ground.

X stared and replied with confusion and disappointment, "Yes, that would be a problem."

Sigma, in all his glorious bulkiness, glared at the one remained man standing that was not X, "Dynamo!"

Dynamo had been watching the Hunter's antics, so he mumbled, "I'll turn on the machine in a second. Yah yah."

"Stop them!" The Maverick Hunter commanded.

"Huh?" Dynamo blinked, and then grinned, "Oh, yah." Dynamo did let out a sighed, but raised his buster and sent a warning shot at X. Of course, he made sure that the warn shot missed X and went straight at the half-incapacitated Zero.

"Zero! Are you okay?" X asked.

"Yah, I'm fine. He just shot my legs." Zero stated rather calmly.

"…And that is good?"

"Well, can't feel them anymore."

"What?" X would have asked more questions, but then Dynamo started taking shots at X.

"Alright, I'll be nice and I won't get the gimp, but as for me and you, X, we are gonna do a little bit of a dance." Dynamo informed and jumped straight at the Blue Bomber.

"Oh no." X barely replied for that before he had to jump away and start tangling with Dynamo. Zero simply had to watch.

Though, he gave his support: "Kick him in the ass; get up on him; watch out for the laser, watch out for the LASER!"

Meanwhile, the trio of Mavericks were starting to compose themselves, including Stardust slowing turning back online. After getting into Dynamo's guard when the blue-haired man tried to send several blasted to him, X held his hands down and saw the Mavericks stirring. "Zero! You are gonna get company."

"And what am I suppose to do about it!" Zero shouted, trying to roll his body to glare at the threat.

"I don't know! You can still use your cannon, right?" Then X pushed away from Dynamo and he could not keep an eye on any more enemies.

Zero was only slightly worried now. Maybe it was the blows to the head, but he was not quite worried about dying. After all, he died, twice, and he did not think today he would be dying again. But what could he do? And then he came to him. Or more appropriately, it floated down in front of him. It also asked him, "Are you alright?"

"Does it _look_ like I'm _alright_?" He asked with a bitter tone.

She did not replay quickly. It took her a second to make this remark: "If I say yes, you aren't going to like me, are you?"

Zero had no idea if she was being sarcastic or not. Actually, he did not care. "Alright shortie, I'm in a bad situation." He replied, much calmer then before, "Can you, like, do something?"

"What do you mean?" She asked.

Zero now actually looking at her. She no longer looked like the grow man she was emulating and was materializing into the little girl he first met. That rather comforted Zero. The freaking' head trick was awful. "You know how you did that freezing trick with me?"

"Yeees?" She has with somehow a mixture of humor and suspicion

"Go be useful and do it to the pile of Mavericks until I can figure out a way to fight without the use of my lower limbs." He commanded.

A strange look crossed over the child's face. When she raised a finger and opened her mouth, Zero predicted he would not like the answer she gave. "Do I really have to touch them?"

"What!" Nope, did not like that.

"I mean, that bald one looks pretty creepy to me, and someone named Vile would mean there might be something rather…disgusting with him. And whatever makes that woman mean…well, I don't want to catch it." She listed off, giving the Mavericks a distrustful once-over.

Zero listened and paid attention to her response, weight his options and her opinions, and replied with a scream, "GO DO IT NOW!"

The ghost grumbled, but she stalked over to the group. She glanced between the three. She could not decide which one should be distracted. When this sort of situation came up, there was only one thing to do: "Eanie-Meanie-Minie-Moe," The Little Ghostie began to sing.

At this time, Stardust had started to regain consciousness. It was rather hard to stay comatose with two Mavericks around her, ones that could eat her, was rolling under her. She blinked and started at the confusion, "Whah?"

The ghost girl said, "Eanie-Meanie-Minie-Moe." A small finger pointed at Stardust.

The Maverick girl heard the end of the song and gazed at where the sound came from. And there it was. That ghost. Stardust started screaming and tried to dive inside the pile of Maverick men.

"Stardust, stop this instant!" Sigma commanded

"Ahhhhh! She's gonna take my inners out through my eye-sockets!" Stardust, on the other hand, ignored orders and started clawing.

"What the hell is kicking me!" Poor Vile in this strange sandwich exclaimed. And not the good kind of people sandwich.

The ghost tilted her head and stared, "Okay…" She expected this task would be much…harder.

X and Dynamo were still going at it. The mercenary pulled out his weapon, juggled it, and already went at X. X ducked from a swing from the left, a swing from the right, and a back-bend, using one hand on the floor to keep himself balanced.

Zero, was…well, Zero was flopping around like a fish, trying to get over to the pile of Mavericks. Zero never realized before how hard it was to move around without legs, but he was trying. He tried in various ways, from dragging his body with one pull of the hand at a time, claw at the ground to bring him closer, to flopping around like a fish, to try standing on his hands. He was going to go over to that pile of Mavericks and he did not care if he had to bite their heads off; he would do something.

X took a moment to glance over at his buddy. "Zero, what the hell are you doing?" He ducked down as a blast whizzed by his head.

"I'm gonna kick their ass." He announced, voice slightly muffled because he was using his teeth to give himself more momentum.

"With WHAT?"

"I still have arms." Zero raised his cannon to the pile of Mavericks, "I still got my," He started to charge his weapon, "plasma and I'm going to smoke their-" He let go of the charge. Of course, his weapon was not working and it only fizzled at the end. "Oh, of course!" Zero cried. He grumbled, but continued on his snail pace.

"Zero, just…hold still. I'll handle it!" X commented, slightly falling back after a shot taken by Dynamo, who was already charging straight at the blue bomber. "Just…one second."

"You think I can't defend myself?" Zero yelled back.

"Zero, you have only one and a half of a function limb set, neither of which help you stand up!" X screamed out, "You are not in a position to do anything but get hurt more!"

"Shut up, you nag!" Zero growled out, "I can still use my head, in mental and physical sense. I still got my armor. I'm still a great fighter and I can take on three Mavericks, even look this!"

"Oh my god…Zero, this is the worst time to test your man hood!"

"As much as I am amused by seeing the Gimp trying to do things," Dynamo interrupted, "We have a fight, X. I hate being bugged with my fighting. It's when I do things best." Dynamo remarked, "And Zero shall be the next target. Gotta keep my AKPH up!" He said cheerfully.

"…What does that even mean?"

Dynamo sneered, "Ass-kicking per hour, baby!" He charged back in.

The summary of what was happening so far: X and Dynamo were in a neck-to-neck battle with one another; Zero was crawling to the pack of Mavericks, ready and determining to fish-slap them to death; Sigma tried to wiggle out of the two metal bodies above him, Vile was trying to follow Sigma's order and restraining the third Maverick, Stardust, who was still freaking about the ghost who simply stood there. But Vile was getting the girl under control and the lead Maverick did notice the blonde hunter was approaching.

With this summary completed in her head, the ghost child decided she had to do something! And something more productive then simply existing. She got an idea, smiled, and looked around. "It was with him…so…maybe it's around here…" She looked around the machine, and then her grin brightened. "Found it!" The girl picked up the discarded journal and flipped through it. She pulled out the pen from the bound, and tapped it against her chin.

In the background, an exposed happened, sending a chuck of something right past through her, with X screaming, "That was almost my head, you blue cretin."

"Aww, I missed." Dynamo chided.

The ghost girl ignored the object and smiled, when she got an idea. This is what she started to write;

~During the climatic battle, it was all interrupted by a large…~

She thought of a good word to use, and shrugged and did a comic bubble with this inside it:

~BOOOOOOOOOOM!~

And so it came to be.

_A few minutes early…_

The large museum was quite a distance from the main city. There was a road that led to it, but the area around it was a wild field of grass, with the group of insects, mice, and occasional little bots mixed in with the occasional debrief scorching the land, from accidence that happened on the ground or from the air. The ground was surprisingly calm…but then…a small rumbled started to shift everything. The animals started to look around, wondering what created the rumble.

In the horizon, a dirt cloud formed. Soon little darts started to shape. They grew and grew and grew and turned into big tanks.

When the power dropped earlier, all shield shut down, meaning everyone. At the time of the outage, Stardust and Vile went to hunt for the Maverick Hunters, Dynamo was working on machines that he knew nothing on, and Sigma had constantly decided which tie went with the shine of his head.

When the power was restored, Dynamo had at first fixed the machine, the swiped the switch box back on, but blatantly ignored anything else. And while it was Vile and Stardust duty to check the minor, they were more excited they caught Zero (with Stardust bragging on how she caught the famous read demon, twice in the same day, while Vile was contemplated on the pleasurable stun setting Stardust could do) that they forgot to check the shields after the power came back on. But so did Sigma, so lackeys are only as good as their Master. Now, Stardust would have fixed the problem, but at the time she leaned over to the consul to notice the big, red warning letters of there are no shields, she was first distracted by her irrationally fear, then X knocked her out.

That gave the Maverick Hunters plenty of time to check for the signals of their missing Hunters.

They were ready for blood. Or…whatever flows through reploids. They would try to spill plenty of it, at least.

_Present, with the Calvary showing up…_

It was actually a series of booms. The people in the room might not have heard the first couple, but everyone could feel the rumble in the floor. Then the crashes happened…one after another, like dominos, except the dominos were the size of a wall. Because they were walls. It stopped everyone in the room and seven sets of eye stared at the walls to the left.

Then the wall to their room came down, showing an advance arsenal of weapons.

"I knew I forgot something else, too." Sigma stated, staring down at the side of a cannon. As if instinct, Vile, Sigma, and Stardust rolled off of each other in a matter of seconds, stood up, ignored everything around them, and pointed their respective weapons at the many units barging in. They were ready.

Dynamo, on the other hand, was not quite as brave (read: stupid). "Well, folks, I enjoyed this little tea party, but I say that this event is getting a little too crowed. And I certainly don't want to take up anyone's space. Ta-at!" And before X could catch up to him, he vanished in a beam.

X gazed at the big guns, then at the crippled Zero. "Okay, well, this will be new one. We get rescued."

The shooting and the cussing already started. Vile had called a mech. to him and took charge, the machine actually working this time. Stardust handling the ground troops with easy, performing almost impossible acts of acrobatics and no sign of stopping. Sigma growled and was working his way through a tank. Literally working his way through a tank. And the tank was loosening like a sub sandwich on game day.

But there were a lot of tanks and people.

While this went on during the background, X walked calmly over to his fallen friend. Even with laser-beams and debris spilling all around, X ignored all distractions. He knelt down in front of his once (and in some regards, still) mentor. "Zero?"

In a dazed, the blond-bot rolled his eyes over to his best friend, "Hey X."

"Yah?"

"The good news is…my legs aren't numb anymore."

"That's…good to hear." X carefully said, not quite sure if this was a good situation.

"Want to know how I know?" Zero asked with a blank expression on his face.

"How?"

"I can feel them…and every part where they have been injured." He took a shuddered breath, "Ouch."

"Zero…are you crying?"

"No!" The bot growled out. But he did turn over from X for a moment. A bomb rolled close to the duo and went off. Unlike most people who would cover their head when such an item went off, Zero automatically reached for his long hair and pulled it safely to him, fearing something would get caught (it must be noted that even though it was a little frizzled, his hair was still as full and as luscious as ever), "What the hell was that?" Zero screeched out.

X rubbed his ear pieces and instead stated, "Yah, I think I'll let you sit over to the side." X lifted up Zero, adjusting them so one of Zero's arms was thrown over his shoulder and X gripped him around the waist. Again, he calmly walked across the room, ignoring the small projectiles, ignoring the flashes appearing every now and then, and just moving his head slight to avoid the piece of someone's arm flinging by his head. That looked like Vile's own. How interesting.

X walked around the corner and set Zero down against the wall. "There you go. You just have a break. I'll help with this situation."

Then, it appeared, that all the broken part's in Zero's head snapped together, "Is there another fight going on?" He looked around the corner, "Awesome! I want to join it!" Perhaps not all of the parts were back together. But to be fair, most of those parts probably had not been fixed since Zero became a Maverick Hunter.

"Zero…can you actually walk now?" X asked, giving him a look.

"My hands work JUST FINE, thank you very much!" He smacked a hand upside his helmet, "And so does my head!"

"Zero?"

"I didn't become an S ranking Hunter for nothing. And I've survived death two times. I feel invincible!"

"Zero?"

"I could take down a whole battalion with just my pink. MY PINK, X!"

"Zero?"

"Yes!"

"You've been charging your hand cannon for the last fifteen minutes." X calmly stated.

"…It's still charging?" Zero gazed turned to disbelief, and then he turned that gaze to his arm, seeing it still flashing. "I thought I let it go when the wall got busted down." He used his other hand to tap at it.

"Maybe you should let it go now." X declared with concern. He had no idea on how much damage this could cause. For all he knew, this could give Zero some sort of reploid Parkinson's.

"…I don't think I can stop it." Zero started to tap it harder. Even shook his hand, just to see if that would jar it going.

X let out a sigh. "I shall be the one to say this; sit back, relax, and enjoy the shoe, er, show." He smiled, stood up, and spotted the ghost. He was surprised nobody noticed her. But then he saw a lazy beam cut through her mid-section, so anyone fighting may very well mistake her for a hologram. "Hey," The little ghost blinked at him at his voice calling, "Come over here!" The girl skipped her way next to X, then the blue Maverick Hunter pointed to Zero, "Keep him company, will you?"

"Alright!" The little one sat down next to Zero. X stood back up, stretched, and clicked his arm into his cannon.

"You are going to be rated for this, X." Zero mumbled.

X grinned at him. "Let me try for an above average then." And then he threw himself into the skirmish.

Zero pouted like the child he was on the inside. The little buddy got out her journal and started writing in it, 'hmming' along with the wreckage and rubble falling around. Zero was half-tempted to crawl out there like he did when it was just him and X, just to be the spiteful little child he was, but…there was a difference between being an embarrassment in front of X and an embarrassment in front of all the Maverick Hunter. X could keep his mouth shut, unlike a certain pink spotter or a certain green mechanic. Oh, and let's not forget the damn medic. He suddenly pictured Livesavor shouting, "Burn the Witch!" Then, he, Zero, was in a white dress, hanging off of a pier.

And that was when Zero realized that maybe he was having some mental problems. He clung to his head, but got another random thought. Though this one was actually kind of awesome.

"Hey, ghost, get me over there." Zero commanded.

"How?" The adolescent did not look up from her writing, just frowned and continued to do word doodles in her journal like a teenager ignoring her brother saying something obnoxious.

"Posse my body or something." Zero grumbled.

As if she had this conversation before, she let out a deep breath and rolled her eyes at him, giving him a particular look. She put down her journal and made a fist, leaving her pointer-finger up, "First off, I am not going to go into the clichéness of that statement and how inaccurate that statement is, not to mention how unethical that." Her middle finger shot up, "Second, even if I admitted if I could do that, I don't think it works on robotic brains." Then her ring finger stood next to the other two. "Third, even if I could somehow do it, me inside you does not magically make all those parts start working."

"Then you are pretty damn useless to me, huh?" Zero scolded at her.

She frowned, dropped her ring and index finger, showed him the remaining one standing, then went back to her journal. "…Why does your arm look like a strobe light?"

"Just watch the damn fight, kid."

* * *

See what I did with my little ghost at the end? She was naughty. I am getting up a lot of stories now! It's nice, you know? I feel much better getting at least three chapters within a month of one another


End file.
